Ranney School Rower Craig Slater Qualifies for Junior World Championships

As a freshman at Ranney School, Craig Slater Jr. stepped off the varsity basketball court and into a boat as the school launched its rowing program. Only two years later, the Tinton Falls teen, now a senior, has won a national rowing title for his school and just last week qualified for the U.S. Rowing Junior Men’s National World team.

Along with 20 other athletes handpicked from the month-long Junior Men’s National Team Sweep Selection Camp, Slater will compete for the United States against 50 other nations and 600 rowers at the Junior World Championships in Eton, England, in early August.

“I’m excited for the challenge,” said Slater, 17, calling from Kent, Connecticut, where he is currently training for the upcoming race with the rest of the team. “I’m ready to rock and roll.”

Slater is certainly no stranger to a challenge—since he first began rowing two and a half years ago with no prior experience, Slater has participated in numerous local, national, and international races. He had already begun to garner national attention for his rowing accomplishments by the beginning of his junior year.

As his freshman year basketball season ended, Slater was faced with a choice between track and field and Ranney’s new, untested rowing program to keep him in shape until the following winter, when he planned on returning to basketball.

“We had no idea what rowing was all about then,” said his father, Craig Slater Sr. “Craig is 6’4 and 195 pounds—we thought rowing was for lighter guys.” After researching the sport online, however, the teenager was willing to “try something new and see what it was all about.”

Since then, Slater has learned that it is a lot about hard work. “People think that rowing is a lot easier than it actually is,” he said. “But it’s the most challenging sport I’ve ever come across. Physically, it’s very demanding. It works your entire body.”

By the winter of his sophomore year, when Slater was supposed to continue playing basketball, he had been doing so well in varsity rowing races that he decided to train year-round, practicing with the Ranney School as well as with Navesink River Rowing coach Mark Malone and Navesink Indoor Rowing’s John Crilly.

Slater has also proven himself to be a versatile rower, starting with sculling, a type of single-rowing with two oars, and successfully transitioning to sweeping, in which multiple oarsmen use one oar each. Because of this versatility, Slater will not only compete in a two-oarsmen boat at the Junior World Championships but will also serve as one of the team’s two alternates, who must be technically-able to race in any of the other four boats in case a teammember is unable to compete.

After his performance in England, Slater is hoping that in his senior year he can win a national championship for Navesink River Rowing as well as for his school. He plans to continue rowing throughout college and after he graduates: “It’s definitely something I’m willing to stick with my whole life. I’m very much in love with this sport,” he said.