Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME ing a successful campus fundraiser with a good showing at Boston's Head of the Charles regatta. Irish boats finished 11th and 12th in a field packed with former NCAA champions and Olympic med- alists. ing coach in 1997. His teams have won the last nine Big East titles and finished 15th in NCAA Championships last spring. The rowers had a busy month of October follow- Boston I think they expected over 100,00 to maybe 200,000 people watching over the course of the weekend. "All the way down from the basin upstream for those outside the rowing world, is a pretty recognizable event. Is it an important race for your team? Stone: "It's huge. It goes over two days, and in through Cambridge, the shore was packed with people. It was a big deal." a-thon" fundraiser on campus the week before going to Boston. How did that start? Stone: "We had some members of our team Blue & Gold Illustrated: Your team held an "erg- who were affected by pancreatic cancer in their families. The team thought that was something they wanted to do, to come up with a way to raise some funds for research for that, so they started it and the team runs it. "… We think [we raised] about $5,000 net for research. It was almost double from what we did last year." athletic department say the next facility improve- ment for Notre Dame sports will be a new boat- house on the St. Joseph River. How would that Blue & Gold Illustrated: Some members of the Blue & Gold Illustrated: The Head of the Charles, Notre Dame hired Martin Stone as its first row- Five Questions With … ROWING COACH MARTIN STONE help your program? Stone: "I think just day to day. Our boathouse is a shed or a garage for a lack of a better term. If you want to meet pre-practice or post- practice you're out- side in the elements. There's not really a good place for our kids to stretch out or warm up. We use a port-a-potty. If we want to watch film we have to come back on campus to do that. Things like those things. "I think that makes a difference over the course Stone has guided the Irish to nine consecutive Big East Conference champi- onships. NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS PHOTO COURTESY of a year if you're fighting for a split second." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What will change for you and your team when Notre Dame eventually moves to the Atlantic Coast Conference in a few years? Stone: "I think the main difference will be our ACC championship race might have a deeper field than the Big East does, but our regular schedule leading up to that probably won't vary very much because we believe in trying to race the fastest teams possible to prepare us for the champion- ship run." your chances to win a 10th consecutive Big East title in the spring? Stone: "We don't feel confident. I think that we have the history to do it and our team knows that if we train well we can be in position to do it, but we still have to make it happen." Blue & Gold Illustrated: Are you confident in — Dan Murphy