Marquette Crew is back in action.
After a crane retrieved a dock swept away by flooding in early August, the university’s club rowing team is on the Menomonee River once again.
The recovery came on the heels of a $22,000 GoFundMe campaign, through which alumni and supporters poured in funds for the program.
“It shows the community that Marquette has,” Eric Walsh, a senior in the College of Business Administration, said. “And that our alumni [are] still watching.”
The flooding that submerged local highways and the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds elevated Marquette Crew’s home river, leaving an abyss of blue where the dock and ramps used to stand. The crashing water broke apart the connecting welds, sending everything down the river just two weeks before the start of the season.
“I woke up, I drove over here, and it was gone,” Stephen Pleasant, the program’s varsity men’s coach, said.
With the dock marking the beginning and end of each practice, the team was left scrambling to keep the prospect of a new season alive.
“It all hinges on the dock,” Pleasant said. “It’s an irrecoverable amount of money and you need it to row.”
MU Crew went to work right away, creating a GoFundMe with a target goal of $30,000.
In the following week, the GoFundMe soared while the water level in the Menomonee River mellowed. As the surface sank lower, the water began to reveal the missing dock.
And it wasn’t far from where it started.
Determined to find it, Pleasant spent a day driving through Milwaukee along the Menomonee River. Finally, he returned to the team’s boathouse to take one final glance at the water.
Just 20 feet eastward hung the dock, suspended from metal hooks and awaiting rescue. Attached to the dock was one of the two missing ramps, accounting for most of the team’s lost resources.
“I was like, ‘We’re so back,’” Pleasant said.
Through the GoFundMe, the team was able to cover the $1,500 cost to rehome the dock and ramp, which required external help. Just days before the season started, a crane made its way to the river to hoist the structure of over 2,000 pounds against a gray sky.
“It started downpouring and it was thunderstorming,” Lauren Leick, a junior in the College of Engineering, said. “It was really dramatic.”
Once rescued, the team took the dock apart, putting $8,500 of the GoFundMe toward repairing and replacing damaged pieces. Finally, it was returned to the water, unofficially kicking off the rowing season.
There is still work to be done, as the team is looking to improve its anchoring system to prevent the dock from wandering away again. With one of the program’s two ramps still at the bottom of the river, Marquette Crew is working to budget the remaining funds the best that it can.
“We’re able to function with this setup right now,” Pleasant said. “So, we’re trying to steward our money.”
With the dock back in place, the varsity team is spending early mornings on the river once again, catching the sunrise on their trips through Milwaukee’s waterways. For the novice team, it’s a view of the sunset at dusk.
Following a recruiting effort over the summer, the novice team is the biggest for Marquette Crew in five years. While a new class is still being recruited, the program brought its varsity and novice programs together for the first time on Sept. 13 to ring in the new season — one made possible by a dock on the water.
This story was written by Lance Schulteis. He can be reached at lance.schulteis@marquette.edu.
This story was updated to clarify a coach’s role.