USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus has had an amazing career both as a college athlete and as a fundraiser for the sport she loves.
As she prepares for the Paris Olympics, she's hoping the new George Clooney-directed The Boys in the Boat movie (in theaters December 25) will prompt more interest in the sport of rowing.
Kraus joined SportsJam with Doug Doyle to talk about her career and the upcoming movie that depicts the University of Washington rowing team's incredible journey that ends with a Gold Medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Kraus is hoping the film gives a boost to her efforts to create a buzz around USRowing.
"We're not an enormous sport. We hope that will change with this movie coming out. We hope that more people will become familiar with rowing and we'll get excited about trying out the sport. It's an incredible story. Daniel James Brown's book of the same name came out over ten years ago. It's called the ultimate team sport for a reason. It's a sport that asks everyone who is a part of it to not only work incredibly hard since people know rowers are incredibly fit and very strong, but to really move as one. That's a big part of the movie and to really commit to being and succeeding as a unit, leaving your own ego and your own story at the dock."
Kraus knows all about that. She was captain of her Division II national championship rowing team at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Watching The Boys in the Boat brought back some memories of her college days.
"When they showed the closeups of the hands with the blisters and they really captured that feeling when you cross the finish line and you can kind of collapse in your seat in the boat and sort of sit back. You're just so exhausted, but you're so elated. You're still moving. The boat is still physically gliding across the water just because it has momentum but you and everyone else has stopped rowing. There's no feeling like that. I think George Clooney and those actors really captured that, the looks on their faces or pure exhaustion but such pure joy."
Kraus has been a major fundraiser for a long time. After moving to New York City following graduate school, she started Row New York by putting $5 into a bank account and reading a book about starting non-profits. Amanda with lots of hard work ultimately built an organization with a $5 million operating budget.
"When I was in graduate school I started working at Community Rowing up in Boston and just about coached every program they had there. I loved it. There was a new program up there called Girls Row Boston which was bringing row to girls from under-resourced areas in Boston. That's was a life-changing experience for me. Rowing wasn't new to me. Coaching was fairly new and youth development was fairly new. The marriage of rowing and girls from teenagers from under-resourced communities was very new and I thought that was amazing. Rowing builds self-confidence, builds a sense of teamwork and a creates a feeling of being relevant. I thought this was sort of magical. I came back to New York City and thought I would love to start the same thing here in New York. That was easier said than done because there was no infrastructure in New York City, compared to a city like Boston or Philly. Philly has this beautiful boathouse row. New York did not have that. What New York does have are people with a lot of determination, so I brought the idea to individuals who had been rowers and now worked n finance and law. I told them I wanted to get teenager girls on the water. I wanted to use rowing as a tool to build confidence and fitness as well as give them college prep. Luckily, some people came forward and said you do that and we'll help you with some funding."
Since its founding in 2002, Row New York has impacted the lives of thousands of teenagers, as well as veterans and people with disabilities. One of Kraus' goals at USRowing is to broaden the reach of the sport.
The USRowing CEO admits her role now is even more challenging with preparing for the Summer Olympics and building unity in the sport. She stresses the campaigns to cover both “The Path to Paris” and the “United We Row” fit perfectly into the wave of support that she wants to build.
"Aren't most things worth doing difficult? It's challenging. It's exciting. It is a team effort. There's getting the team together and that's the athletes. They are the ones pulling the meters and they're just incredible. It's also the coaches and the team that supports the team. These people are working so hard and have so much humility. The "Path to Paris" is science-based and athletes-centered. So, there's that whole piece of the training and the logistics, the preparation and retention of these athletes. Then, the money side of course is critical. To support the National Team for a year is roughly four-million dollars in direct costs. The funding support we receive from the USOC, which were so lucky to receive, is 1.9 million dollars. So that's a healthy gap that's left to be raised. That's raised by fundraising from really generous individuals and corporations. There's no government funding. It's a privilege though to work on that in my mind because you are just supporting these amazing athletes who become role models frankly for the younger people in our sport."
Kraus has been the recipient of numerous awards including USRowing's John J. Carlin Service Award in 2008, USRowing's Anita DeFrantz Award in 2011 and the NYU Partnership Award for serving girls and women with disabilities. In 2012, she received the Community Leadership Award from President Obama's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.
Amanda is married to rower Michael Smith and they have a son and daughter who played volleyball.
You can SEE the entire SportsJam with Doug Doyle interview with Amanda Kraus here.
