We wanted to take a moment to congratulate current board president Bernard Aparicio on his showing at U.S. trials last month in Sarasota.
Photo credit to Row2k
Bernie has been training for a spot on the U.S. lightweight olympic national team since 2019, rowing with the Vesper high performance team in Philadelphia. After missing the Vesper selection for the lightweight mens 2x, Bernie decided to enter into the open weight 1x trials to race against 24 of the fastest single scullers in the United States vying for a lane in Tokyo.
Despite having only a few weeks to train in the single leading up to the event, Bernie placed 9th overall in what is the most competitive race in the United States. As former Aztecs rowers we can’t help but be equal parts nostalgic and proud of what Bernie has accomplished to date.
From all of us at the foundation and Aztecs everywhere – Congratulations Bernie!
See the full results of the olympic trials here.
Garrett Klugh
With Tokyo fast approaching, we wanted to take a moment to highlight to story of Aztec and Olympian Garrett Klugh, who rowed at SDSU from 1992 – 1997 and competed in the straight four during the 2004 Olympic games in Athens among many accomplishments during his rowing career.
To this day, Garrett has remained involved with the team, speaking to the athletes about his experience and inspiring Aztecs to consider rowing at the highest level. Check out his recent interview below on the Athlete to Entrepreneur podcast and to hear his full story including his experience rowing at SDSU.
Episode Description:
“When 9 year old Garrett saw the Olympic torch run by his house in 1984 he decided he’d be in the Olympics. The rest of his story is simply awe inspiring. If you like grit, persistence, twists/turns, romance but no-violence, all told by a master story teller.“
2021 brings a renewed hope, and unprecedented challenges for the future of the team and the Beekley foundation. Consider doing your part to help make the foundation successful by contributing monthly via our online donation system.
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.
