UTS Haberfield Rowing Club: Past, Present and Future
UTS Rowing Club
The history of the renowned Haberfield Rowing Club goes back to 1925. Since its beginning it has provided a supportive and welcoming environment to generations of athletes and club members in creating a community of special lifelong friends. Its inclusive spirit remains a strong value of the Club today, as does the pursuit of excellence.
At UTS Rowing, we are proud of our sporting and community legacy. During the pinnacle of our success, between 1992 and 2008, we sent 37 athletes and coaches to the Olympics who brought home 16 medals.
I passionately believe in investing in a secure future for rowing at UTS which will establish it as the premier rowing club in Australia, Professor Ross Milbourne, Former Vice-Chancellor UTS
Our future vision reflects the Club's significant history of success – to be Australia's leading source for elite rowing athletes in international competition, while providing a positive and supportive environment where athletes can achieve their maximum potential.
The University and ActivateUTS (formerly the UTS Union) have demonstrated their commitment to this goal, with a substantial investment of over $8 million dollars to create an exciting new state of the art facility at Haberfield.
UTS is an athlete friendly university with a respected Elite Athlete Program that has assisted many of our UTS rowers. This program helps them to balance and fulfil their sport commitments and studies. To give our student athletes every opportunity for success, we recognise a need for specific scholarships and additional programs.
We know that a world class rowing facility is a positive first step in creating a club that can produce the next generation of rowing talent in Australia. We now need to recruit and retain world-class coaches, purchase and maintain superior rowing equipment, attract top athletes and provide scholarship support. We are now actively building a community of supporters to work with us in achieving these goals. We invite you to join that community.
Laura Dunn, UTS Rower 2006-2014: Rowing is a very early morning sport. We all train day in day out here. Having great people around really makes it a lot easier to come down every day. Definitely, this club is a great community and I think that the new sheds definitely going to build into that community even more so.
Geoff McIntyre, Founding President UTSHRC 1992: This club started in 1925. It has developed over those many years, it has made quite an impact on the sport but the best thing that happened was in 1992 and at that time UTS were looking, to move into rowing and we managed to bring the two together.
Narrator: Activate UTS, formerly the UTS Union took over the running of the club in 1992 at that time the 67 year old facility was in need of some financial assistance and the then Union saw it as a unique opportunity to engage with and drive an elite rowing program. The club then went from strength to strength and at its peak, it was home to 23 elite level athletes rowing at the club and also studying at UTS.
Between 1992 and 2008 the club saw 37 of our athletes go to the Olympics and bring home 16 medals.
Ellen Randell, Head Women’s Rowing Coach UTSHRC 1992-2014: Our most successful year was 2000 in the Olympics in Sydney. At that time, we had the most number of rowers on an Olympic team out of any club in the world.
Geoff and James Stewart, UTS Rowing Olympians 1996, 2000 and 2004: When we first arrived here in Haberfield Rowing Club I was rowing with my brother Jeff and Steve and we developed, our sort of rowing career and I got selected in the ‘96 games. It was a very good having the club here and the facilities available and the funding available from UTS.
Narrator: During the 2000’s New South Wales Licensed Clubs including ours took a hit and with an aging facility we were faced with two options, firstly let the club and the facility and our rowing program go or two invest in it.
Professor Ross Milbourne, Former UTS Vice-Chancellor: We were regarded as probably the leading club, certainly the leading university rowing club in Australia. I want us to be that again and we’ve got the opportunity with this unbelievable facility we can support it with equipment and coaching and the students this will become a major success story and bring us back to the glory days when we will be regarded as a preeminent club in Australia.
Narrator: We’re fortunate to be a part of the University that really values sport, health and wellbeing. Together we invested 8.5 million dollars to create a club and a world-class home for UTS Rowing.
Geoff McIntyre: I think the new club is going to create a wonderful facility for the students of UTS and the young people around the district. This new facility will bring rowing in New South Wales and UTS right up to date with the latest equipment, beautiful location, historical situations that will continue on a tradition that started so many years ago.
Narrator: UTS can now say that it has the newest rowing club in Australia. It is also the first New South Wales licensed club to be completely redeveloped in over 10 years. We believe our new world-class rowing and training facilities will attract more athletes to the club and it won’t be long before we’re watching one of our student athletes row for Australia in the Olympic Games.
Professor Ross Milbourne: Most great universities around the world have great students and most of them are linked to sport in some way, but there is no great university in the world that does not have great facilities and one of the things that this is about is building great facilities for generations to come.
Narrator: It has been a long process but to see this incredible new club it has been worth it.
UTS Haberfield is a club that will service and unite the community and help support our athletes in achieving their goals.
The club has always had a great heart and now we have a home that matches.
Professor Ross Milbourne: And we want the community to be part of the success story we want the community around here to feel when UTS goes to the Olympics and wins medals, we want them to feel, I’m part of that club. Enjoy the club. Be proud of the club, help us and support us whichever way you can to make this an absolutely fantastic success story.
Narrator: Our vision is bold and ambitious. We’ve built a facility for the future, one that will become the centre of rowing excellence in Australia. Come and be a part of it.
