United
States Sailing Center -- Long Beach
USC and Alamitos Bay Yacht Club present the 20th
Annual Rose Bowl Regatta
Jan.
8-9, 2005
Jan.
4, 2004
Record
National Turnout Due For Rose Bowl Regatta
LONG
BEACH, Calif.---No. 1-ranked Brown University
of Providence, R.I. will line up against No. 2
USC in the 20th annual Rose Bowl Regatta this
weekend (Jan. 8-9) on Alamitos Bay.
The
traditional event leads off the year for more
than 300 of the nation's top college and high
school sailors. They'll represent 25 college teams
from coast to coast and 60 high schools from California
and Hawaii.
The
USC sailing team is the official host of the largest
combined collegiate and high school regatta in
the country. The US Sailing Center and nearby
Alamitos Bay Yacht Club are organizing the event,
with the latter serving as host facility for the
competition.
Northern
California teams---Stanford and Marin Catholic---will
be defending their 2004 collegiate and high school
titles, respectively.
USC
is led by Mikee Anderson, a two-time all-American
who, with crew Graham Biehl of UC Irvine, was
second in the U.S. Olympic Trials for the 470
class last year.
Anderson's
rivals will include Georgetown University's Andrew
Campbell, a San Diegan who was national singlehanded
champion this past season, and St. Mary's Justin
Law of Newport Beach.
Top
high school competitors will include Adam Roberts
and Parker Shinn of Point Loma High School's powerhouse
team. Roberts, with Marla Menninger, just won
the 95-boat 420 class in the Orange bowl Regatta
at Miami, Fla. last week.
The
event will celebrate two decades of competition
with its largest turnout of about 85 teams, including
the service academies. The teams, each consisting
of four or more sailors, will sail 14-foot, two-person
Club/Collegiate Flying Juniors (CFJs), rotating
boats off the beach next to ABYC and the US Sailing
Center on the protected bay adjacent to the Long
Beach Marina.
"It's
quite a scene with several hundred people---parents,
friends, coaches---on the beach all day long,"
said Mike Segerblom, executive director of the
US Sailing Center. "Some days when we're
waiting for wind a flag football game breaks out."
The
high school teams will be split into Gold and
Silver divisions based on previous performance.
The Gold will share Alamitos Bay with the collegians,
while the Silver compete on the smaller bay fronting
the Sailing Center.
The
event started in the early ‘80s, following
the lead of Miami's Orange Bowl Regatta and New
Orleans' Sugar Bowl Regatta as warm-weather attractions
for the nation's sailors revolving around the
New Year. However, it was first billed as the
"Hangover Bowl," a name that soon died
a timely death.
"Teams
had trouble getting funding to come to the 'Hangover
Bowl,' " Segerblom said.
For
the first few years it was college only, then
combined with high schools as California developed
into a hotbed of youth sailing. The years also
have seen the gender revolution evolve in sailing
to where about half of the participants are female.
MORE
INFORMATION
United
States Sailing Center
(562)
433-7939
www.ussclb.org
Rich
Roberts
Press
Officer
(310)
835-2526
richsail@earthlink.net
