Norcal Crew

Norcal Crew offers rowing programs that include Learn to Row week-long summer camps, Continuing Skills, Intro to Competitive Team, Competitive Camps, and Competitive Rowing. Athletes use top-of-the-line racing shells, including eights, fours, quads, doubles, pairs, and singles. The program has grown steadily over the past decade and now has nearly 200 members across the men’s and women’s teams. Crew is presented as a team sport that fosters a sense of team spirit and helps athletes develop both physical and mental toughness, and it is described as a lifelong sport with participants who row into their seventies at masters regattas held throughout the country. Crew at Norcal is also described as broadening athletes’ horizons as they learn to trust and support others, while establishing their own sense of confidence and commitment.

• Schedule: Week-long summer camps

In the fall of 2000, Norcal’s original head coach, Mike Still, founded Silicon Valley Crew, a rowing program for high school students on the Peninsula. In the fall of 2004, the crews decided to combine their resources and athletes, merging into one team rowing out of the Bair Island Aquatic Center, and the athletes chose to name the new program Norcal Crew. Norcal Crew is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of youth through the sport of rowing. The organization is overseen by a board of directors, managed by an executive director and coaching staff, and supported by its membership and the surrounding community. Norcal believes that all athletes deserve to row, regardless of their ability to cover the costs, and is committed to making the opportunity to row available to any athletes who want to train. Norcal races all over the country, though primarily in California, and has been a nationally ranked crew that continues to be competitive every year.

Norcal Crew is supported by its membership and the surrounding community. One family describes Norcal as fostering a community of athletes in a safe, challenging, and fun environment, and says they have watched their son and daughter develop as competitive athletes while making lifelong friends, with habits and discipline they believe will help them be successful in life. Another family describes Norcal as an incredible combination of a highly competitive team and a supportive environment, with top notch coaches building great skills on and off the water, and says their daughter has built friendships and life skills that will be with her forever. A third family with two boys at Norcal says the level of effort is intense, that the boys do not mind the early hours or long practices, and that the discipline and focus rowing brings is unmatched, with friendships they describe as extremely strong and likely to last a lifetime.

Last updated June 5, 2026.