Allison Doodeman had been on better teams than the one that struggled to fit together last year.

Deadlocked on Boston’s Charles River, the senior captain on the Syracuse women’s rowing team can recite the things that went wrong that season, at least up until the last 300 meters of the race.

‘I felt like, on varsity (last year), it was a struggle for us to mesh together because our season just wasn’t going how we wanted it to,’ Doodeman said. ‘But in that race for the Cup all of our frustrations came together. We weren’t going to let them win.’

Led by Doodeman, the team prevailed, winning by nine-tenths of a second to secure the trophy and its tradition.

But a new crew will be tested Saturday on Onondaga Lake, the team’s home, when Syracuse’s faces Boston University in its season opener.

And according to the tradition, the cup is headed Boston’s way.

Since its inception in 2003, the annual race for the Kittell Cup hasn’t been won by any team consecutively, SU head coach Kris Sanford said.

But for Doodeman, losing isn’t possible for the Orange as the season begins. Not with her crew’s new state of mind. Sanford, too, has observed her crew’s changed attitude and newfound happiness.

‘There’s a lot of confidence this year, in ourselves and each other, which I think was a little missing last year,’ she said. ‘People questioned who they were rowing with and what the commitments of other teammates were. But this year’s accountability bracelets kind of nipped that in the butt.’

Doodeman laughed at the ‘cheesiness’ of the captains’ idea and slogan to distribute rubber accountability bracelets. Bracelets were cliche. But to Doodeman and her peers, making a list of what a Syracuse rower should be before winter training in January came down to one word.

‘Everything seemed to revolve around accountability,’ Doodeman said. That theme is now bolded in orange around every rower’s wrist.

Accountability is a lifestyle, a 24-hour responsibility for the choices made both on and off the water, Sanford said. For the head coach, both the motto and bracelet symbolize a personal and team commitment to practice, health and academics.

All sacrifices, and no excuses, that would ensure a faster team and no second thoughts come May and the NCAA Championship, Sanford said.

‘At the end of the day (accountability is) when it comes down to how much heart you are willing to put out or the girl in front of you and the girl behind you,’ freshman Natalie Mastracci said.

The motto has since shown on the bleached bracelet beneath the folds of Mastracci’s SU apparel, on the screens of rowing machines that have displayed numerous personal records, and on noticeable improvement of ratios, the time between every stroke of an oar blade.

It’s the change in the atmosphere of the team as a whole that is different from last year and has proven Syracuse’s mission for 2008.

‘We show accountability by winning,’ Doodeman said. ‘Our goal is to win all across the board, something that (Sanford) has said has never been done.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on March 27, 2008 at 12:00 pm