After a year of records broken and medals earned, some local dragons are ready to hit the water for 2023.
Tennessee Heat Dragon Boat Club’s season came to a close with new experiences learned and growth in their ranks. The club competed in 2022 competitions in Knoxville, Sevierville and Alexandria, Ky.
Kevin Kelly, 2022 coach and one of three coaches for 2023, said the group came in fourth, third and first overall for each respective competition.
“Last year, I think we had a very productive season,” Kelly said. “It was interesting. We were coming off of COVID so we had quite a bit of turnover on the team. About 50% of our team were people that had never paddled before and, over the course of the season, everybody really came along, took coaching very well and progressed amazingly.”
Ginger McDonald, president for 2022, said after working hard all summer the first-place win at the 2022 Kentucky Dragon Boat Festival felt great to see results from the group’s efforts.
Kelly attended a coaching clinic in the spring and came back with new ideas to rebuild the club’s stroke. McDonald said she thinks the change made a major impact.
The club broke its own record at the Drums on the Dam Dragon Boat Festival in Sevierville with 58.458 seconds for the 200-meter race.
McDonald said as a group they want to break 55 seconds in the new year.
The group has been trying to grow the club and recruited more members than in the past. McDonald said they were a constant presence at New Villagers meetings and went to a few HomeOwners Association meetings as well.
The goal for 2023 is for everyone in the group to recruit one member so they can double their numbers. The boat has 20 seats and the group does not always have a full boat for scheduled practices.
“We would like to have enough members so that several times a week we could have paddles aimed at different categories,” McDonald said. “For instance, we would like to have a full boat for what we call an easy paddle where we aren’t necessarily training for a race, or we would like to have a full boat for a women’s only paddle, or we’d like to have a full boat for a men’s only paddle and so forth. We just don’t have enough members. Sometimes we end up having to cancel practices because we don’t have enough people to go out.”
Sevierville will not host Drums on the Dam this year, and the club is deciding on a replacement competition.
“We would like to get in three or even four competitions a year if we can,” McDonald said. “… There’s one in Nashville and we’re looking at Asheville. ... Chattanooga has talked about sponsoring one. So between those three hopefully we will add a new one to our schedule.”
Kelly said he thinks the club has enough accomplished returning members to compete for a win at the KARM Dragon Boat Festival in Knoxville. He said he would also like to defend the group’s title in Kentucky with an all-women team.
The Kentucky Dragon Boat Festival, Paddling for the Pink, is partially presented by Paddling for Cancer Awareness, a 501(c)(3) organization. The nonprofit promotes Paddling for the Pink as the only dragon boat festival hosted and run by breast cancer survivors and supporters.
“We went down there last year and we had a mixed team,” Kelly said. “We had six men on the team — it’s a 20-person boat — but this year we want to go back, and because there were a lot of breast cancer teams there, we want to go back and really kind of honor that part of it and put an all-women’s team in there to support the other ladies teams that race in that competition.”
While she enjoys all aspects of the club, McDonald said she loves moonlight paddles at dusk on a full moon. She said once a person gets hooked on dragon boating, it’s hard to quit.
“What I’m most proud of is how a group of strangers came together and became a family,” McDonald said. “They really worked hard together and by working as hard together as they did they became just the best of friends and that was fun to watch happen.”
Kelly said that team aspect is his favorite part of dragon boating. Individuals in the sport who focus on themselves will hurt the team.
“I told the team at the end of the season — we had a get-together — and I told them it was one of the most fun things I’ve done,” Kelly said. “It was my first year coaching the whole team, and it was just really the learning curve, the struggle, how everybody came together. A lot of the team members started calling us, ‘Oh, you know this is more than a team, this has become a family.’ So it’s just that gelling of a lot of people. I think a lot of long-term friendships were made (and) created over the course of it.”
For more information or to join, email McDonald at ginmcdot@gmail.com or contact Kelly at 631-807-9149 or kevkel207@aol.com.
