When Mason Chudzik and Gianna Manchester came to Wayne State University, they had no idea they’d revive a sport that had been dormant for nearly four decades. The pair are behind Wayne State Club Rowing, an effort to put university oars back in the Detroit River, a place they haven’t been since 1984.
“Once I settled into Wayne State, I looked into all the club sports they had so I could decide how I wanted to involve myself at the university. I noticed we didn’t have a rowing program,” said Chudzik, a 21-year-old finance major in the Mike Ilitch School of Business. “I thought about how odd it was that we have this great resource in Detroit — the Detroit Boat Club Crew — that Wayne State wasn’t using.”