ALUMNI
Generations Pulling Together
Notre Dame Men’s Rowing has one of the most loyal and connected alumni communities at Notre Dame.
The reason is simple: you do not spend years waking before sunrise, carrying boats through the cold, racing in the rain, pushing yourself beyond what you thought you could do, and learning to move as one without forming bonds that last.
The friendships forged on the St. Joseph River do not end when a rower takes his final stroke for Notre Dame.
They become something bigger.
Across generations and across the country, Notre Dame Rowing alumni remain connected to one another and to the team they helped build. They are leaders in business, medicine, law, engineering, finance, the military, education, public service and countless other fields. They mentor younger alumni. They open doors for graduating rowers. They offer advice, introductions and opportunities.
And they come back.
ONCE A ROWER. ALWAYS A ROWER.
Every fall, generations of Notre Dame rowers return to campus for Alumni Weekend.
They climb back into shells and race each other on the St. Joseph River. They reconnect with teammates they once trained beside every morning. They meet the young men now wearing Notre Dame across their chests. They gather for Mass, celebrate the program’s annual awards and traditions, and head to Notre Dame Stadium together.
For a weekend, decades disappear.
The stories get better. The crews get older. The rivalries somehow survive.
And another generation learns that Notre Dame Rowing is much bigger than the four years they will spend in the boat.
BUILDING THE FUTURE
In 2024, alumni and friends came together to establish Friends of Notre Dame Rowing (FONDR) and undertook one of the most ambitious efforts in the program’s history: creating a $2.5 million coaching endowment to help secure the future of Notre Dame Men’s Rowing.
The response was extraordinary.
Alumni, families and friends across generations rallied behind the program and have since exceeded that initial goal — ensuring that the opportunities they once received will be there for the rowers who follow them.
It was more than a fundraising campaign.
It was a statement about what this team means to the people who have been part of it.
YOU INHERIT THIS.
When you join Notre Dame Men’s Rowing, you inherit nearly seven decades of teammates.
Some raced before you were born. Some trained in borrowed equipment and beat-up shells. Some built the traditions you now take part in. Some wore the same monogram decades apart and may never have met — yet immediately understand something about one another.
They know what it took.
And someday, you will too.
The rower beside you today may become the person standing beside you at your wedding, helping you find your first job, taking your call twenty years from now — or climbing into an alumni eight next to you and arguing about who still has another 2,000 meters left in him.
That is the gift of this program.
You come to Notre Dame Rowing to race.
You leave with a crew for life.
Pride. Precision. Tradition.
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Visit the FONDR Website: www.fondr.org