---

Rowers endure hundreds of early morning hours on the river, sore muscles, blisters and long road trips in pursuit of a burst of rhythm. 

For Wichita State’s rowing team in 1981, hard work, repetition and commitment came together at the perfect time at one of the sport’s most prestigious races. On May 9 that year, Wichita State’s women’s varsity four won the national rowing title at the Dad Vail Regatta on the Schuykill River in Philadelphia. 

Lori (Anderson) Heger remembers the feeling in the racing shell and the music their oars and bodies created that day. 

“It was unbelievable, honestly,” she said. “They say it's like frying eggs on the hull of the boat. If you get rowing together well enough there's like a crackling sound. I can remember we had that, and we were swinging together.” 

Shocker Rowing, founded in 1975, will celebrate its 50th anniversary April 26-27 with activities honoring the history of the program at Wichita State University.  

The 1981 Dad Vail championship stands out as one of the program’s highlights, because of the prestige of the event and the youth of the program. The Dad Vail started in 1934, added women to the lineup in 1976, and bills itself as the nation’s largest intercollegiate regatta. East Coast schools, such as Rutgers, Dartmouth, Georgetown, the Coast Guard Academy and Temple dominated for much of its history.  

“It was pretty amazing to be in that elite company of teams and come out the winner,” coxswain Lynn Ross said. “There are times when everything slides into place and makes sense. That happened to me in that race.” 

Back then, Wichita State didn't have much of a reputation. Mary Pope, Leta Garner, Terre Eikenberry, Anderson and Ross changed that with a time of 8 minutes, 13.4 seconds in the 2,000-meter race. 

“We're rowing down the river and people, you know they're hollering at us, ‘Is that where Dorothy lives?’” said Terre (Eikenberry) Graham. “’Where are you from? Do you row in the wheatfields?’ You know they didn't know a lot about who we were.” 

The pageantry and the tradition made the Dad Vail the highlight of the season for the WSU crew. 

“Even after four years, it was an awe-inspiring thing to see,” Ross said. “The size of the event was significant.” 

The May 10, 1981 Wichita Eagle-Beacon devoted a headline and two paragraphs to the race, followed by results from the three men’s crews. The Dad Vail website doesn’t record results before 2008, and the event’s Wikipedia page doesn’t list all races from its history. 

The WSU rowers remember a 30-hour ride in a school bus. They traded T-shirts with rowers from other schools, and Graham has a quilt made with the ones she collected in her two years of rowing. They remember Dad Vail’s grandstand and the big crowds on the Schuykill. The Eagle-Beacon article states 56 schools and 1,800 rowers participated. 

“The best row we ever had was at Dad Vail,” Heger said. “We just clicked. I don’t think they expected us to do anything. We weren’t from the big Ivy League schools.” 

Ross’ best memory is calling her mother on Mother’s Day. 

“It was cool to be able to wake her up and tell her I won a gold medal yesterday,” she said. 

While the opponents didn’t seem concerned with WSU, Graham remembers rowing well at a regatta in Wisconsin earlier in the spring. That performance told her the Shockers put the right women in the right spots. Graham rowed as the “stroke,” the person closest to the stern and responsible for setting the rhythm. 

“It was a good combination,” she said. “We felt like we would be competitive. We were pretty excited, because we were undefeated.” 

The women joined the team with no rowing experience.  

Heger, who grew up in Ohio, played basketball for the Shockers after transferring from junior college. She met John Heger, her husband and a four-year rower, while on the crew.  Ross, from Sedgwick High School, lived in Brennan Hall, and some rowers invited her to practice. Graham, who ran track and played tennis at Wichita East High School, joined the crew after seeing an ad posted in the Campus Activities Center.  

“I enjoyed the camaraderie,” Ross said. “You’re all suffering the same way. Row in the morning, breaking ice with oars to put the boat in the water.” 

Generations of Wichita State rowers know that camaraderie. Many of them chased that buzz of teamwork and orchestration on the Big and Little Arkansas rivers and competed in races around the country.  

The 1981 women’s Varsity Four found that state for eight minutes and 13 seconds, a race that remains one of the program’s best days.

---

---

Wichita State University is Kansas' only urban public research university, enrolling more than 23,000 students between its main campus and WSU Tech, including students from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 countries. Wichita State and WSU Tech are recognized for being student centered and innovation driven.

Located in the largest city in the state with one of the highest concentrations in the United States of jobs involving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Wichita State University provides uniquely distinctive and innovative pathways of applied learning, applied research and career opportunities for all of our students. The National Science Foundation ranked WSU No. 1 in the nation for aerospace engineering R&D, No. 2 for industry-funded engineering R&D and No. 8 overall for engineering R&D.

The Innovation Campus, which is a physical extension of the Wichita State University main campus, is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing research/innovation parks, encompassing over 120 acres and is home to a number of global companies and organizations.

Follow Wichita State on social media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube
• X | Twitter
• Facebook