At Aragon, paddling and crew aren’t mainstream sports like basketball, soccer and track are, but their existence at Aragon is widespread.
Though Aragon doesn’t have a dragon boat team, many Aragon students participate in the youth branch of Dieselfish, an established bay area Dragon Boat team.
In essence, a Dragon Boat is a large 20-seated canoe traditionally carved and painted to resemble a dragon, hence its name. These large boats are raced on 500 meter long stretches of water. The sport of Dragon Boat racing originated in China 2000 years ago, and traditionally occurs during the Chinese Duanwu festival. Dieselfish, however, races year round.
The Aragon Dragon Boat Club is led by Senior Lori Ross. The team is comprised of ten Aragon students, along with students from Mills, Leiland, Pioneer and Bellarmine High School.
“We’re like a mosh pit of schools,” jokes Ross, about the composition of the Aragon club.
“I joined [the] dragon boat [team] in my freshman year of high school with the Asian club,” says Ross, describing her first experiences with the Aragon dragon boat team. “The Asian club’s dragon boat team fell apart… because not enough people were coming out to practice to sustain the team… but I really liked the sport, so in my sophomore year I contacted my old coach, and he referred me to this team called Dieselfish. I started up the Aragon team through them.” Ross has led the team ever since.
“[Dragon Boating is] really fun,” says Ross. “I like the sport because it’s a total team sport. You can’t pull a 1000 pound boat by yourself, so it’s a collective effort by all 20 people… I used to be really shy, and through being captain I’ve come out of my shell, and I have better communication skills now. I’m also working with students who are also shy, and so with Dragon Boat I can see them grow up and mature and come out of their shells as well.”
“Lori is a really good leader,” says senior Heather Hamaguchi, who has been on the Dragon Boat team since her sophomore year. “She supports everyone, and she’s really nice.”
On Saturday, April 21, Dieselfish Youth dragon boat team raced in the California Dragon Boat Association’s eleventh annual youth tournament on Lake Merced in San Francisco and got second place in their division.
“In the makeup of our team, we’re mostly 50 percent new paddlers, so for the makeup of our team we did really well,” says Ross on how her team performed, “Now that we know how we performed at the race we know what we need to work on to get better for the next races.”
Dieselfish’s Aragon branch plans to race in the Long Beach Dragon Boat Festival in late July, and the San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival, often considered the largest Dragon Boat meet in the United States, at Treasure Island in September.
Along with Dragon Boat, Aragon students are also members of Crew teams. Aragon students are on the Northern California crew team NorCal Crew.
A much broader sport than dragon boat, Crew is essentially boat races of all shapes and sizes. There are many different sizes of boating teams, from single to octuplet. There are two types of rowing: sweep-oar rowing, where each rower rows with one oar, and sculling, where each rower rows with two oars, or sculls. All races, or regattas, are categorized under those two variables.
“[Our team is comprised of] a lot of people on the peninsula,” says junior Samantha Bowman, one of the few Aragon members of the NorCal Crew team. “Here [at Aragon,] my brother [Miles] and Simone [Jacobs also] does it.”
“It seemed interesting,” says sophomore Miles Bowman, on why he chose to participate in Crew. “I joined in spring of eighth Grade; my sister was doing it at the time.”
“I’m essentially the assistant coach,” Miles. “I’m the second in command. I run classes, I organize things, make sure everyone’s where they need to be, as well as taking care of teammates, and moderating what goes on at practice.”
“We try to advertise,” says Samantha, on why so few Dons row “It’s a pretty expensive sport, and it’s high demanding: it takes a lot of your time and effort.”
