Friends of Davis Rowing

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Friends of Davis Rowing The Friends of Davis Rowing is a non-profit organization that supports the UC Davis Men's Crew.

The UC Davis crews row out of the Curt Rocca Boathouse, located in the Port of Sacramento, which is about 20 minutes northeast from the UC Davis campus via Interstate 80 (Click here for directions). Built in late-1993, the 4,000 square-foot boathouse was largely made possible from the fundraising efforts of former Cal rower Curt Rocca, team members, alumni donations, and the University. The men's and women's teams have their own bays, each with racks holding up to 10 shells. There is an area in the rear of the boathouse allocated for stretching space, ergometers, weights, and a video playback station. The Port of Sacramento contains one of the best bodies of water to row on in California. Crews can row year round in its relatively flat, endless water, and crews of yesteryear will recall the notorious Rio Vista row (a 4+ hour row to the town of Rio Vista). HISTORY

UC Davis Men's Crew started with humble beginnings in 1977: the team's first shell was a wooden 8+ that was sawed in half and driven back from the East Coast on top of a van. Since then, the team has grown enormously and has acquired some of the the best equipment and facilities of any non-funded crew on the West Coast, rivaling that of some funded varsity programs. The team has enjoyed much success in the competitive arena, including: WIRA championships in the varsity 8, JV 8, light 8, novice 8, and 2nd novice 8; Pac-10's medals; 4 trips to IRA national championships, including a 9th place finish in the freshman 8 in 2003 and a 13th place finish in the varsity 4 in 2005; the first team trip to ECAC Championships in 2006, finishing 4th in team points.

ALUMNI DAY 2026We had a good turnout at Alumni Day this year with 25-30 men's alumni in attendance. The weekend started ...
10/10/2026

ALUMNI DAY 2026

We had a good turnout at Alumni Day this year with 25-30 men's alumni in attendance. The weekend started Friday night with Marci Porter, women's alumnus and Olympian, being inducted into the Cal Aggie Hall of Fame with the Legacy Award. Now we have both a men's team and women's team members in the Hall of Fame. Hopefully, more to come. Crew alumni and friends of Marci had about four tables at the event and we were the loudest and most supportive bunch there.

The team rolled out the red carpet for us renting the big tents, tables and chairs and delivering lunch for us. The women's alumni brought morning snacks so we were all well fed.

6th Annual Alumni Day 10K Erg Challenge:

We had 6 alumni show up at the crack of dawn to wrestle with the ergs at the boathouse. For the 2nd year in a row the winner was Edward Hoffman with a time of 36:22. Start your training for next year!

FODR Board Election Results:

Thank you for taking the time to vote. We had 127 alumni vote and the new Board for 2026-2028 is:

Carlo Facchino

Pat McLaughlin

Kent Perkocha

Roger von Ting

Joshua Booth

Nick Balardi

George Jenkins

Thank you to past Board members Thomson Gilles, Casey Gallagher and Sean Ballard and to Dylan Burfoot and Tobi Stein for offering to get involved. We survive on your support and volunteer time. Anyone who wants to help, reach out to us and let us know where your interests are and how you would like to help or we can suggest something. You do not have to be on the Board to help the program succeed.

We will be in touch soon about our fundraising goals for this upcoming year.

President's Update:

Niko Stratigos, this year's team President, said the team has 23 returning team members and they hit the recruiting trail very hard, renting space at a couple home football games as well as on campus. At this point there are maybe 2 boats of novices and they are still hard at work trying to get more. The team is sending two fours to the Head of the Charles on October 16th. They are staying at Michelle Hirsch-Donovan's house again. She takes such good care of them, its unclear if they are going for the racing or for her pampering! Thank you Michelle!

The team is in race 33 - Club Fours.

The team will be at the Head of the American on 10/24 and the Long Beach Pancake Regatta on 11/14.

Brostrom Service Award - Tanee Chum

This year we recognized Tanee Chum for her eight years as a volunteer assistant. Due to our limited budget, our program benefits greatly from the many alumni who have helped coach the team after graduation. Tanee is a frequent presence at the boathouse even when she is not coaching and provides a reminder to each year's team that they belong to a larger group and that the often invisible "alumn family" is rooting for them. Due to Tanee's many years coaching, she likely is the most well known alumnus we have! Thank you Tanee, we appreciate all of your efforts!

Alumni vs Varsity race:

The alumni vs varsity race included two varsity boats and one young alumni boat who did not take the usual alumni early start handicap. The alumni beat one varsity boat, but the other two boats were so close it was hard to tell who won.

Head of the Port results:

The team raced 3 fours at the Head of the Port on Sunday, October 4th, taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd over River City, Sacramento St, Chico St and Sonoma St. They also raced two eights taking 6th place and 8th place.

PHOTOS: See all alumni day photos on the Alumni website at davisrowing.org. If anyone else has photos from Alumni Day, please let me know and we provide a drop box for you to load them into and then get them on the alumni website for all to see.

FODR Board

RYBO, Go Ags!!

09/02/2026

FRIENDS OF DAVIS ROWING BOARD ELECTION - PLEASE VOTE

The Friends of Davis Rowing Board election for the next two year term from October 2026 to October 2028 started yesterday. If you did not receive an email from [email protected] via Survey Monkey and would like to vote, please contact us at [email protected] and we will send you the email to vote.

Voting will continue until Alumni Day on October 3rd.

RYBO, Go Ags!!
FODR Board

Our next senior is Evan Hermes, this year’s vice president. One of the few four year oars of this class, he was a consta...
06/20/2026

Our next senior is Evan Hermes, this year’s vice president. One of the few four year oars of this class, he was a constant presence in our fastest boats until health issues sidelined him halfway through this year. His shoutout is written by Michael Warnes:

Evan Hermes is a wonderful person. Over the past three years I was able to see many sides of Evan’s personality from his stoic work ethic to his fun loving social side. When I first joined this crew Evan was someone that I looked up to both literally and figuratively. To all of the novices in my class Evan served as an example of how a rower should be, pushing in all of his workouts and approaching each day with the mentality that he could be better than how he was the previous day. It was this mentality that earnt Evan the awards for both most tenacious and most improved varsity his second year.

Evan is one of my favorite people on the team to hang out with as he always finds a way to make people laugh. Evan is able to take a joke and then dish one back that made the scenario twice as funny. My favorite banter that I ever saw Evan engage in was with Liam — the ice cream shop in Boston could have been put onto a late night comedy show and nobody watching would have batted an eye.

Evan is graduating as an Aerospace engineer, and I know that the work ethic that Evan developed on this team will serve him well where life takes him. Evan is caring, hardworking, funny, and a friend. I cannot wait to see what Evan does in the future and I hope to share many more laughs with him in the future.

Next up is our resident fat erg and incoming president, Nikolas Stratigos. His shoutout is written by Jack Daugherty:Nik...
06/20/2026

Next up is our resident fat erg and incoming president, Nikolas Stratigos. His shoutout is written by Jack Daugherty:
Niko (or as everyone always calls him, Nike) is one of the most hardworking, steadfast and dedicated rowers on our team. He’s been tearing it up on and off the water since he joined the team in winter quarter of 2024, bringing home medals in the novice eight at ACRA and in the varsity pair at WIRA this and last year. As his pair partner for most of the year, I can say with certainty that there are few people I’d rather have in my boat.

Easily one of the most locked-in members of the team, Niko somehow finds the time to balance rowing with a civil engineering major, a job, and a social life. As a resident fat erg, Nike is a constant presence at the erg container and at the ARC, working in extra lifts and steady state to his already packed schedule.

On a more personal note, Niko is one of the friendliest, funniest, and most dependable teammates that I’ve ever had. His sense of humor is pervasive, taking over the boat with jokes that last for days on end until they inevitably drive Rosaly insane (cargo ship ranking?). He’s always there for a teammate in need of advice, or a few words of encouragement. Once, when I got stranded with a few teammates 25 miles from town after dark on my bike, Niko drove almost an hour to pick us up and bring us back to Davis, no questions asked.

While Niko is one of the many seniors we’re going to celebrate as graduation season rolls around, we are fortunate enough to get to keep him for another entire year as he pursues his master’s degree at UC Davis. I can’t wait to see what he’ll accomplish in his final year on the team.

Our first senior shoutout goes to Liam “Boyler” Boyle. He became a standout oarsman immediately, rowing in the N8+ that ...
06/20/2026

Our first senior shoutout goes to Liam “Boyler” Boyle. He became a standout oarsman immediately, rowing in the N8+ that took ACRA bronze. In his rookie year, he cemented his spot in the stroke seat of the V8+ and stayed there this year for the V8’s best finish at ACRA in recent history. He also won gold at WIRAs in the pair and attended HOCR twice. We’re incredibly sad to see him leave us a year early. His shoutout is written by Penn “Aauughh” Carbo:

Liam is possibly the most consistent performer on the team. I’ve never seen him injured, let alone sick, and every single day he goes out and puts the same consistent effort. As a rookie varsity, any opportunity to row in a pair with Liam in fall was a great day. In eights, he holds the boat together in every situation, and we would not have done what we did this season without him. As his teammate, seeing him power through all of the stress that was on everyone in winter quarter was inspiring to me and helped me to keep pushing forward.

When not rowing, Liam can be found planning herping trips or melatonin-related activities. Many iconic acronyms and parts of our team culture this year came from him: HT, BBD, Gundo, DBC, VD, YGB, What the Hell are You Talking About, Tuff channel/negative aura, aura van, purple day, Snow. The fun he brings to this team is going to be something we all will miss next year.

Amy Hillyard of Oakland is MissingWife of alumnus Chris Hillyard ('90-'93) is missing. Her case has received some news ...
04/17/2026

Amy Hillyard of Oakland is Missing

Wife of alumnus Chris Hillyard ('90-'93) is missing. Her case has received some news media attention, dozens of volunteers have joined in the search for Amy, canvassing door to door, walking East Bay Trails, watching hours of BART security footage, among other efforts but she has not yet been found.

The family has created their own website that posts updates on the search for Amy and offered $10,000 reward for any information leading to her safe return.

https://www.bringamyhome.com/

Feel free to post to your social media as every additional eye and ear can help. Thank you.

Our hearts go out to the extended Hillyard family and we look forward to her safe return.

FODR

Address

West Sacramento, CA
95691

Telephone

+15304248823

Website

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