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AHS students to build boathouse Senior project would create a facility for crew devotees By JOHN DARLING ASHLAND -- With no help from tax money, Ashland High School girls have created a new sport -- crew -- acquired seven boats, traveled to regattas in San Diego, Boston and Eugene and now are embarked on a $250,000 fund-raising drive to build a big boathouse on Emigrant Lake. The 20-boat, two-story stucco boathouse is the ambitious senior project of Jazmine Molloy and Katie Hamer. About $20,000 has been pledged so far, said volunteer crew coach Steve Kiesling, an Ashland author who crewed for Yale. "I think it's going to come together pretty fast, much like the funding campaigns for the ice rink and skate park, which I also worked on," he said. "It's going to be an elegant structure and we hope to build it this fall." Crew is the fastest growing school sport in the nation, said volunteer assistant coach Martin Thommes, partly because of Title 9 requirements that equal money be spent on boys' and girls' sports. Members of the 30-girl crew team have made presentations to Southern Oregon University, Ashland High School boys and Medford high schools. The schools have expressed interest in forming their own crews and having access to the boathouse, Kiesling said. It would also be open to community members who form their own teams. "The reception has been awesome and exciting," said Molloy, who serves as the crew's coxswain, calling signals through a loudspeaker. "Maybe some of the community were doubtful we could pull it off," Hamer added, "but it's moving along surely." Design of the boathouse was donated by architect Joyce Ward, whose daughter Devon crewed with AHS last year and is on Willamette University's team this year. The structure is 2,800 square feet on each of its two stories and includes docks and a gym with rowing machines and lockers. The first floor is cinderblock and the top story is wood with decking around. "It's great wholesome fun and helps you really believe in having a vision and making it happen," Ward said. Jackson County, which administers the park at Emigrant Lake, is supportive of non-polluting forms of boating, Thommes said, and has run power and water to the boathouse site, which is just east of the recreational vehicle camp. The AHS crew team was created last year as a senior project by Jennefer Traynor, for whom the boathouse will be named. She and 15 teammates last year raised $16,000 for boats and travel. "I'm so proud. I had no idea it would go this far," she said. "With no boathouse, it was a pain to come out here in the dead of winter and wade in the icy water and not have a warm place with a bathroom." The team raised $1,500 in raffle prizes from Ashland merchants for last weekend's fund-raiser regatta at Emigrant Lake. The team took members of the public for rides, in which the visitors actually took on the complex task of rowing. "It's not jarring and offers a full aerobic workout, because you push with your legs while you pull with your arms," said Thommes, who took up the sport himself two years ago at age 66. "It's bringing a lot of people out of the woodwork who crewed when they were younger." Molloy and Hamer tried to explain the allure of crewing. "It's kind of addicting. You learn to move as one entity," Molloy said. "You learn to feel what everyone else is doing. You learn your center of balance and how to control your seat and oars and to maximize the potential of your strength." "It's like flying," said Hamer. "It's just high energy to be here." Donations to the boathouse may be made by contacting Coach Kiesling, 2375 Abbott Ave., Ashland OR 97520 or phone 482-2012. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA