Gainesville Area Rowing offers a Middle School rowing program. The middle school sculling program is a fun way to enjoy the outdoors, get fit and make new friends!

Interested? Contact Coach Jen Figueroa, Email: murphymurphy@hotmail.com, Phone: 352-219-0717

More information on Middle School Rowing can be found here.

Located on Newnan’s Lake in Gainesville, the GAR 2009 Summer Rowing Program has something for everyone. This program is open to all students in every school zone. Whether you are new to rowing or a seasoned veteran, you can learn new skills or polish existing ones.

More information can be found here: Summer Camp 2010

The middle school sculling program is open to any middle school student. We teach them how to do sculling with two oars and sweep rowing with one oar. Our focus is to teach children how to row and be a member of a team and have fun getting in good shape. We do not require the rowers to compete although we offer several opportunities to race each season. Our seasons follow the school year and new rowers can begin at any time. We practice twice per week for two hours. Practice days are Monday or Wednesday, the rower picks ONE of these days. The Monday and Wednesday groups come together for a whole team practice on Fridays. Our practice time is 4:15-6:15 pm. The cost is $55 per month. Rowers are encouraged to wear shorts that aren’t too baggy, t shirts, socks, running shoes, and bring a water bottle. On days with cool weather we also recommend dressing in layers that aren’t too baggy. We practice indoors at our facility when it is raining, very windy, or too cold to safely row on the water. We are always accepting new rowers and look forward to watching our team grow and row faster! Our program functions to provide a positive experience in rowing and preparation for our competitive high school program.

All high school and middle school rowers that joined GAR last year or this year need to take this swim test.

The Northwood YMCA has been kind enough to let us do a swim test this Saturday morning (9/19) at 9am. They do not have many openings in their schedule so we had to take what is available. It is imperative that we have all rowers from every youth squad there to do this test. The test will consist of a 200 yard swim, and 10 min of treading water. Each rower will also need to show that they can put on a lifejacket while in the water.

The testing will begin at 9 am and will be complete by 10:30.

Order forms for GAR Gear and Unisuit can be found here:

Forms that are required to be completed include a physical evaluation form, release of liability form waiver, emergency information and medical release form. Links to these forms are listed below. All forms must be completed and submitted to the coaches prior to October 1st.

Breakdown of expenses and fundraising requirements are shown in the following documents:

The GAR Handbook provides plenty of useful information for rowers and their parents.

For most of GAR’s new rowers, rowing is very unfamiliar territory. Parents and guardians can feel overwhelmed by the newness of it all. Many aspects of GAR and of rowing require a little getting used to: the sport itself, with its own language; the organization, with its established ways of doing things; and the regattas, which are a world unto themselves. This Handbook was written to help with all of that uncertainty. It contains information about GAR and how it operates, what to expect at regattas, driving directions to regattas, and many other details. In addition, it provides an introduction to the sport of rowing and its terminology. The information in this Handbook tends to remain the same from year to
year.