The H. Del Beekley Rowing Foundation is currently planning future milestones, events, and areas of support for Aztec Rowing. After a tough period for collegiate rowing and the world overall, there has never been a more crucial time to take a step back, ask the important questions, and ensure we’re focusing on what’s most important.
As an Aztec Crew Alumnus/Alumna or supporter, we need your valuable input to get to those answers and continue to shape our future plans. Please follow the link below to a brief questionnaire to let us know how we are doing and where we can continue to grow and improve.
We appreciate your time and feedback.
In 1960, Del Beekley led the effort to restart the rowing program at San Diego State. Back then, the team would row out of the 1891 Rowing Club at the foot of 5th Avenue, San Diego Bay. I showed up for the first meeting in a coat-&-tie. Del got me on a rowing machine then told me to report for practice the next week.
Born in Romania, 
Bernie rowed as a lightweight under coaches Brian Robison, Derek Snyder, Doug Perez, and Toby Johnson. His years at SDSU were sleep deprived, and are now a fogged out memory. However, one of his earliest anecdotes at SDSU involved this lack of sleep. One day, after a killer evening erg, he fell asleep on a bench outside Tenochca. That was his bed for the night, and 4:30 in the morning his teammates woke him up to go to morning practice. Henceforth, the crew team claimed his dreams and soul. While at school, he worked harder, not smarter. But his discipline skated him through difficult times, and a tenacity to take on any endeavor to graduate and succeed in sport got him through school with a degree, a collection of tanks, and a reputation.
However, the rowing bug had bit Bernie hard and he made a terrible economic decision. He put the engineer career on hold to row professionally. He moved to Philadelphia, where he lives in a monastery and rows with Vesper as they prepare a team for the next international race. The dream put in his head on a bench outside T-Nasty has now become the real nightmare.
socially distant virtual fitness program. As the campus continues virtual classrooms and strict dormitory quarantines, athletes will continue to train within reasonably safe conditions. At SDSU the Aztec Recreation Center is closed, along with the Aquaplex. The Mission Bay Aquatic Center is open; however, there is little possibility of rowing team boats out of the facility. With these constraints in place, the team will continue virtual workouts, with the hope of conducting socially distant in person workouts at open space areas (Presidio park, Mt. Soledad, the infamous Tecolote Canyon). In addition to these land workouts, Craig is taking tentative steps to get the team in singles – where you can’t blame the other guy for bad set!
about the good ol’ days. Spread the myths and legends of Aztec Rowing without worrying about finding a person to drive you home! We hope to see you at the happy hour, held over Zoom. Event details will be sent out soon! Please let us know if you are interested, so we can have a rough idea how many to expect. Mention if a particular day works best!
As a 5th year senior at SDSU in ’73/’74, it was my last year to get a Varsity jacket. As a Community College transfer, I sat out the spring semester so I could start in the Fall of ’71 with all the other new students. Tennis was my primary sport at the time. However, my JC did not have tennis and the Athletic Director would not let me start a program, hence my tennis career took a nosedive – other than me teaching private lessons and entering SoCal tournaments.
Long story short, my roommate was right; we made the Varsity. We raced in the Western Sprints up in Canada at the end of the season in a Varsity 4+ and made it through the heats and reps to make the final where we finished 5th. Back in those days all the crews on the west coast raced in the Western Sprints. That included Washington, Cal, Stanford, UCLA, Long Beach, UCLA, Santa Barbara and several Oregon schools.