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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin women's openweight crew coach
Bebe Bryans recently sent her rowers an interesting YouTube video.
It starred a real-life badger methodically, single-handedly burying a small cow's carcass for safe keeping. The project required five 24-hour days, but it got finished without issue or fanfare.
The message?
"That's us," Bryans said. "We're just going to work and work and work and get the job done."
And when it's complete?
"Next," Bryans declared with a smile.
That's where the 10th-ranked Badgers are with regards to their competitive to-do list this season.
They have a Big Ten Conference race with Minnesota scheduled for Sunday on Lake Mendota, weather and surface conditions permitting, of course.
That will give way to the Big Ten championships May 13 and 14 in Indianapolis and the NCAA regatta May 26 to 28 in West Windsor, New Jersey.
Since Bryans took over the program 13 years ago, advancing to the national championships has become more habit than hope.
UW fans make a big deal — rightfully so — about the men's basketball team appearing in every NCAA tournament since 1999.
Ditto for the Wisconsin football team, which has qualified for a bowl game every season since 2002.
The Badgers are working on a similarly impressive streak in women's open-weight rowing.
They have advanced nine consecutive seasons, either by automatic bid as Big Ten champion (2010) or by receiving an at-large berth via the NCAA selection committee.
Either is doable next month given the strength of the Big Ten, where six schools are ranked in the top 20 of the latest CRCA/USA Rowing coaches' poll. Ohio State claimed three straight NCAA titles from 2013 to '15.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, has finished in the top three of the Big Ten championships seven straight seasons, so if that streak holds true another at-large bid seems likely.
"That's just our normal," said Maddie Wanamaker, a senior from Neenah, Wisconsin. "Our team has established that that's what we do. That's our goal as a program. We raise our expectations to that level.
"To not go is not an option."
Another senior, Maria Schmid of Milwaukee, said the UW culture is defined in part by a uniform belief that it will get to the national regatta.
"The goals we set up at the beginning of the year coincide with what we want to do at the Big Tens and also what we want to do at NCAAs," she said. "We know our team is good enough to get there."
Wanamaker said culture is an important topic of discussion around Porter Boathouse, where the UW men's and women's rowing programs are headquartered.
"It's a big word that we've thrown around a lot this year," she said. "We push each other. We hold each other accountable. Collectively if we're not at that level we're always pushing to get better."
Bryans speaks about the immediate future of her crew in a confident, admiring tone.
Fresh off a third-place finish in the Clemson Invitational, where 12 of the top 25 programs took part, she said her student-athletes are "learning it's fun to be the predator and not the prey" and that even better days are ahead.
"We're just now starting to see how fast we can be," she said.
The Badgers placed second in the Big Ten and ninth in the NCAA championships last season. If they exceed those finishes Bryans said quality guidance will have a lot to do with it.
She said UW "lost some key leaders" but the voids have been filled.
"What we've come to see is that not only did those leaders set their teammates up well for the challenges that we've faced this year, the people that decided to step up have done a magnificent job of it," Bryans said.
"So we really are the best we've ever been. I think we're the strongest we've ever been. I know we're the fittest we've ever been. This team is just a joy to work with and a joy to be a part of and it's showing itself out there on the water."
The Badgers list 76 student-athletes on their roster, 10 of whom are seniors.
"We're all about the team, trying to support each other and being there for each other, said Kaitlin McKeogh, a senior from San Rafael, California. "We're kind of unique in that we spend a good amount of our season on land and use that as an opportunity to come together and push other."
In the middle of it all is Bryans.
"She's definitely very passionate about rowing," McKeogh said. "You can tell she loves the sport and has great energy."
Asked to describe Bryans' style, Wanamaker said she's not an emotional yeller.
"She's a guru almost," Wanamaker said. "She's just a good all-around person who builds the athlete as a person instead of a rower."
Schmid said it's an advantage for the Badgers to compete in the powerful Big Ten because the competition is so fierce. They've raced against fifth-ranked Ohio State, No. 19 Michigan State and Minnesota in the Big Ten Double Dual earlier this month.
"Just being to race against the top boats in the country in our conference allows us to line up next to them and have that experience," Schmid said. "Once we go to NCAAs, we've seen these teams before. We have that experience."
Not only does Wisconsin expect to make its 10th consecutive appearance in the NCAA championships, which were sanctioned in 1997, its members want to appear on the podium. That means a top-three finish.
"We definitely have that expectation when we set our goals at the beginning of the season," McKeogh said. "This year it's we want to be on that podium in the 'A' final."
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Bryans supports that belief.
"I have an expectation of our level of performance and we have been able to meet that for the past nine years," she said.
"We control whether or not we can get there and I feel pretty strongly that if we race and row up to our potential, we have the talent and the work ethic to be able to return and not only go, but to compete.
"What I'm seeing now is that getting there is not our goal. That is our first step. We want to race to win there.
"We want to get on the podium and you have to be exceptional to get on the podium and that's our job," Bryans said.
