Veteran Coaches to Lead Old Dominion Boat Club 2012 Select Rowing Team this Fall

A pair of veteran coaches with more than 50 years of coaching experience between them will lead the Old Dominion Boat Club (ODBC) Select Rowing Team this fall. Registration for the team, which will include students from T.C. Williams and other local high schools, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 1, from 8-10 a.m. at the Dee Campbell Rowing Center. Practice starts Monday, Sept. 3, at 4:15 p.m.

Steve Weir, who spent 33 years coaching at T.C. Williams High School and has a trophy named after him at the prestigious Stotesbury Cup Regatta in Philadelphia, will serve as head coach of the ODBC Girls' Team, while Jaime Rubini, who rowed for Peru in the Pan American Games and has coached high school rowing in Northern Virginia since 1990, will serve as head coach of the ODBC Boys' team.

Weir's coaching career at T.C. Williams began in 1975, which was also legendary coach Dee Campbell's first year as head coach for the T.C. Girls' Crew Team. Weir started coaching the Girls' Lightweight team in 1978, and became the head girls' coach for T.C. in 1994. His crews won 12 Stotesbury Cups and SRAA Championships and five Canadian Secondary School Rowing Association Championships. The trophy for the Women's Lightweight Eight at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta is named "The Steven T. Weir Cup."

Rubini began rowing in Lima, Peru, at the age of 16, and rowed for Peru at the 1971 Pan American Games. Soon thereafter, he came to the United States and rowed at Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia. He moved to Alexandria, and began his coaching career also under Dee Campbell. He spent 10 years leading the T.C. Freshman Boys' program, winning many state championships, third places at Stotesbury and third places at SRAA Nationals. He spent five years as head coach at West Potomac High School before returning to T.C., where he has lead the Girls' Second 8 to Gold at Stotesbury, Bronze at SRAA Nationals and where he continues to coach today.

Weir will be assisted by Patrick Marquardt, who rowed for T.C. Williams in the 1990s and was head coach of the multiple medal-winning T.C. Williams Girls' Freshman team this past spring, while Rubini will be assisted by Lexye Hearding, who also rowed for T.C. Williams in the 1990s and has served as director of the Alexandria Summer Crew Program the last two years.

Founded in 1880, the Old Dominion Boat Club is one of the oldest boat clubs in the United States. ODBC is also the birthplace of high school rowing in the City of Alexandria. Today, the ODBC Select Crew Team rows out of the Dee Campbell Boathouse, a world-class rowing facility in Old Town.

In recent years, ODBC rowers have established a record as one of premier select crew programs in the area, bringing home victories in such local races as the Head of the Potomac, Head of the Occoquan and the Occoquan Challenge, and top 20 finishes at the Head of the Charles in Boston.

Please check www.tcwcrew.org for updates on regatta schedules, fees, and other information about the fall season.