 Good evening. I am the only Speaker between you and dinner So if that got everybody quiet Awesome. Good evening. My name is John King. I have the privilege of serving as vice president for student life at Roger Williams I'm in my 20th year and coach Amanda for whatever reason has asked me to kick off tonight This is among our most beloved events bringing together current student athletes our successful alumni and family members in a fun Competitive environment wasn't today fun Possibly the wettest captain's cup ever. I'm glad everybody brought balers. That was a good move Amanda If you are a new student and family member You are joining a special tradition and a culture that is second to none We are indebted to our longest standing alumni sailors who have stewarded this event for decades and for coach Amanda for Creating and sustaining such a strong and positive culture that emphasizes the engagement and networking of alumni and Parents along with sailing excellence This was an exciting and busy summer in the sailing center and on our waterfront and Amanda asked me to tell you a little bit about it Roger Williams served as the host site in support of US sailing and the 2023 youth Championships during the last week of June Sailors and family members from across the country converged on campus and in Bristol for more than a week Naturally our waterfront and campus facilities showed well US sailing turned our lower field beneath the rugby site into site headquarters with a large tent The sailing center served as a hospitality and viewing center and family members remarked It was one of the best venues they had ever experienced Most impressively it seemed that no matter where the sailors and family members hail from They knew one of you one of our current sailors or more recent alumni They knew coach Amanda and they were very much aware that the Hawks are Paranaly one of the top sailing teams in the country This year's youth champs served also as a qualifier for world sailings 2023 youth world championships and there were seven racing classes Just three week later our waterfront and facilities served as the venue for the US Junior women single-handed and double-handed championships for young women ages 13 to 18 With no private coaching allowed US sailing coaches were provided to enhance the experience sailing skills competitors and networking within this group of athletes I'm not leaving the podium tonight without taking the opportunity to salute the sailing prowess of our very own coach Callahan who qualified for Who qualified for and who will compete in the pan-american games? Representing the United States along with our outstanding junior sailor Mateo Dale Representing st. Croix. Let's give it up for Mateo They start next weekend in Chile, which is amazing Amanda never talks about her own sailing She never talks about herself She just sails and excels in the Sunfish category and because Sunfish is not an Olympic class option The pan-american games are actually one of the top International showcases and venues for that championship So once again, please join me in raising the roof again Supporting Amanda and Mateo at the pan-american games in closing. It does not get better than this This is an incredible event the sense of belonging the sense of community within this crowd the traditions and How you feel about each other in this tradition? It's phenomenal every college student every family should be able to experience something like this But few do you do so enjoy tonight enjoy captain's cup and we're off to dinner. Thank you Thank you everybody for coming We're gonna kick off the dinner part with a little video To thank everybody who has made our our fleet happen and Hopefully everybody can hear it Sailing is all about being in the community and with Roger William sailing team. I found my people and my family I've gotten so many great opportunities and gotten to meet so many amazing people through sailing that naturally I just want to continue it at Roger Williams University. It's always been something I've been extremely passionate about from the time I was seven years old The new fleet has enabled our team to actively compete at the highest level of region sailing and it's just been We've been so blessed this year to have this Thank you guys and this wonderful new fleet We really feel blessed to have received it and it's really added a lot to our sailing program here at Roger Williams It really means the world to us. We're so excited to be able to sail these boats every day Thank you guys so much. We are looking forward to a phenomenal season and we cannot have done it without you Thank you! I just want to say that Those are our captains Carly who's down at St. Mary's today And Claire Buckley who's here in Hank I didn't give them any heads up that they were gonna film that that day I think they did a really great job and it was very much from the heart, so Great work everybody Hold on for one second. I really can't see from you so I have the privilege every year of Recognizing an alum we have a bunch of former winners a few anyways former winners of the alumni award in the house Mack is one of them Maybe he's he might be the only one anyways We're really fortunate to have an actively engaged Set of alumni who come back to this regatta every year who when I call them on day of giving they They heed the call When I call them and I'm saying hey, I'm sailing a regatta in Florida. Can I stay on your couch? They're like absolutely I get to see them at regattas Outside of college sailing all the time. It's so great to have alums that are like I said really involved with the program and We like to recognize them at the captain's cup the person who's winning the alumni award this year is not here And in fact, they're the parents of an alum, but I wanted to recognize them As I mentioned them earlier today. Yannis mentioned them earlier today the McGraw family who made the lead gifts to make our fleet possible and As has been stated many times today Many of us not everybody but many of us in this room were introduced to sailing through our family members and that love of sailing is Passed down from generation to generation for most of our sailors Those formative sailing experiences end up turning into passion and that passion literally fuels What we do every day on the water that passion gets you through practice in February when it's really really cold When it's maybe snowing and maybe when you're on the far side of the golf course and you have a westerly blown at you Donald McGraw Loved sailing and he passed that love of sailing down to his sons Peter who graduated in 76 from Roger Williams Josh his brother who was a parent of a 2005 grad David parent of a 2010 grad and their other brother Robin The McGraws also passed down their sail number number 44 It had such significance to the McGraw family and particularly for David He petitioned he petitioned the postal service in Osterville to get his address changed to number 44 like that's how serious they were about that sail number And how much it means to them and that was a little bit behind the design for this year's logo Along with their love of sailing the McGraws also have a love of Roger Williams as I mentioned Peter as an alum Liz is a 2010 alum Erin Oh five alum all proud graduates of Roger Williams David the dad of Liz He's also got two other kids, but we'll leave it with Liz He has been our fairy godfather. He's been I got introduced him pretty early on and Every every chance that he's on campus, which is rare, but we get to go grab a lunch come to the sailing Center He regales me with amazing stories about his rides on Sturgis and the folks that he meets along the way But they have truly Made such an indelible mark on our whole entire program as the honest mentioned earlier today They helped us get to the finish line when we were doing the sailing Center campaign In fact this the classroom in the upstairs is named for their dad Donald McGraw again, he handed down that passion that love of sailing and Their lead gifts to this fleet Allowed us to get this new fleet along with the Matthews the Recklers in the hunts and the Levins Outside of their philanthropy and leadership on various boards the Cape Cod Academy the Mystic Sea port just to name a couple As I mentioned David's just like a genuinely great guy, and I really wish that he were here tonight So we could all thank him for their contributions Unfortunately, I have like a family medical situation that one didn't allow them to be here tonight, but He's such a great person I would love for you all to meet him. He's a sensational story teller super down-to-earth a Real pleasure to hang with he's also an expert he he Refurbishes vintage motorcycles. That's his passion. He would he he loves sailing, but he would rather be riding Oh as you can tell that's just one of his bikes. I think that might be his favorite I've seen him and on that bike more than any other bike, but he's an avid rider The McGraw Foundation is focused That's their they're giving arm the McGraw Foundation focused on advancing community efforts in health education and human services they recently named The McGraw distinguished chair and emergency medicine at Brigham and women's they support substance abuse and prevention The spalding rehab adaptive sports centers hospice care on and on their generosity Goes far and wide and we are beyond grateful that their generosity extends to us the David and the McGraw family have made a truly transformative impact on our team and I'm delighted to recognize them in there even though They're not here tonight and Thank You David. I will Kate and I will have lunch with him when I get back from Chile But I just wanted you guys to know that we have a fairy godfather out there who? Loves and as I mentioned earlier today, you know continues to support what we're doing believes in what we're doing and We we just love them to pieces so anyways at this point I would like to welcome to the podium our Race committee for the day. We have Emmett Neville class of 25 Who is ably assisted Dom? I see you hiding back there Dom come on up This is taken yesterday before the rain. We have a small scoring error We thought somebody was meant to be scored OCS, but we will get to that part later We'll start with They cleared themselves evidently Anyways, we'll get right to it. Well first off. I want to Say thank you to everybody. It was a great day nice and warm and dry I Had a great time out there everybody was super super great super nice Great racing not too much contact, which was good Not that I saw apparently a lot at the Woodward mark, but All right. Yeah, so that's all we got We're gonna start off with the family division the best division By far. They were the only ones who weren't over every single time All right, so Spot them up. We had Jacob and Jersey Give it up Keith and Zach, I'm just gonna rip through them now. We can clap at the end Tim and will Leo and Frankie Karen and Drew Kailin Casey and Cameron Jack Roman and Kate Roman Alyssa and Tim Jay and Tavia Katie and Ethan Eric and Oliver now we're getting to our top three. So in third we have Joanne and Addie in oh If the top three has got a come up here, we've got a Some wonderful mugs for you. Are we gonna have them all stay up here? congratulations guys in Second place we had Peter and Mary and finally In first place Aiden and Darcy give it up first Like to thank my parents for coming. There's a first captain's cup This was my mom's first time ever sailing FJ. So I thought it was a good experience for Maybe one captain's cup she'll she'll drive an all crew and we can we can run it back So I also like to thank Emmett and Dom for being raised committee. I was it last year So I know how it goes a little bit of a burden, but I think they did great Thank you everybody. All right, let's give up one more time for the family division So we're gonna go we're gonna go screw first family screw division Okay, so for those of you who don't know the screw division is I'm getting to it. I'm getting to it slowly but surely The screw division is if you're a crew normally you skip her so screw Right we got it All right, it is a tough crowd you guys I'm bombing here all right, so We've got In fifth place in our screw division. What do we hit Leonard and Ruby? Yeah, fourth place Claire and Mike Set third place Katie and Jeff and Betsy. Oh third place. Come on up. Oh Yes, well elite we got to get the picture in second place We've got Hank and Katie give it up and In first place we have Marin and Rob. I would like to thank my mom and dad for coming and Yeah, I don't really have anything and my sister And it was a fun day today Congratulations. All right now. We are going on to our elite siblings In sixth we've got Max and Matthew Then we've got Olivia and Lexi Julian and Luke Ethan and Wyatt third place Very very close racing in our elite siblings of vision it is what it It sounds like Congratulations, you gotta get Second we've got Mike and Katie It's worth noting that Katie fired her dad after they ended up in the water three times last year and And even though she thought she was safe with her brother they ended up capsizing in the last race and Finally to end off our elite siblings. You've got Joey and Lucy By a large margin might I add they had a big buffer there Congratulations I'd like to thank my parents and my brother for coming out for another race against us this weekend. Oh And obviously Riley You'll see it you'll you'll hear it in a second here, so we've got a slight slight scoring issue here Sorry about that guys It's too late for that now All right, we're just going with it. All right guys All right This is a big one. All right, should I do them all? All right starting from bottom up Matthew and Dawson Michael and Madeline Mike and Claudia Hockey and Riley Chuck and Becky Bob and Maggie Michaela and Taryn Kelsey and Chris I tried I didn't see the eye Riley and Molly Martim and BB. Oh Oh, oh actually I didn't say that Forgot it forget I said that Mac and Abby Connor and Jennifer Cameron and Grace Ed and Megan George and Cal Johnny and Anika. Oh That's actually fourth place Yeah everybody did So fourth Johnny Danny and Halle Third place come on up. Is anybody here to represent them? In second place we have Chase and Julia Give it up for them These guys last year did just so well in the elite siblings of vision that they have now been promoted to Honorary alone Julia's not here. Yeah, congratulations Due to the scoring we had a little bit of scoring, you know, but In first place we have Martim and BB. Congratulations guys We did do a circle. What do you want to say? I just want to say it's a fantastic event start your Third fourth event. This is my second. I just want to say thank you so much to Amanda for hosting this event Fantastic so many new boats. We're lucky to have these boats. Remember my freshman year. We had six brand new 420s and This is a pleasure to have like 18 fj's fantastic great program very happy all the alums here Really happy to have these boats. So great job Amanda and the rest of team and you know, good luck rest of the season Go Roger Williams Hawks. Whoo now The moment we've all been waiting for the crash cup the crash cup this year goes to someone who I Don't know if you guys if you were here last year. He stood up in front of everybody before we went out racing day one and and Told us all how we needed to be very very careful with the old boats Not to hit anything. We needed to keep them nice Keep them clean. No more dings This year he did not make that speech Instead he decides to Probably do quite the opposite and just I think hit if it was on the water he tried to hit it and It's very disappointing To see from from him, you know, one would think it's new fleet of boats after that wonderful speech last year We'd have a little bit of respect for all the new gelcoat, but I guess not so without further ado This year's crash cup goes to Mac not Abby Abby was very clear that this was not on her It rests solely with Mac Forgot to say this at the beginning, but I also have to thank Dom so much for helping me out today Give it up for Dom. I Would not have been able to do my job so well if it wasn't for him, so Thank you everybody and enjoy the rest of your evening It's gonna give everybody a quick kind of rundown about where we are what we're doing how things are going Danny Petrovic is good for the record. It's they're kind of a funny thing Right, like highlights are like the Instagram version of what's actually going on Right, like you just show the shiny glossy things that happen and truth be told we had a really good year last year We did time spring rolled around we were races. Perhaps we didn't see as much adversity as we needed to and I think by all accounts We underperformed at nationals. I don't think that is unfair to say As I said, it's easy to talk about unicorns and rainbows It's less hard to talk about the things that didn't go according to plan As you know, we're always trying to compete at the highest level of college sailing And sometimes it doesn't go the way you want it to go We discovered at nationals a little too late that maybe we weren't the team that we thought we were Spent the whole summer thinking about why that was. I think everybody who was there at nationals also Did a lot of reflection at the end of the day we ended up 17th out of 18 at the women's semi-final, which was not disappointing at all. We started Pretty much a whole new team at that semi-final and they had some success and built some confidence at that event I think. Then we got to team racing nationals and we ended up finishing sixth in a three-way a three-way tie with Yale and Dartmouth After some after-hours shenanigans that Brown pulled to like slide on to the podium One one race behind them very very close racing But we had we had bigger goals in that and we we struggled pulling it together after tough losses and then a Devastating 10th out of 18th at the semi-finals and not moving on to the finals We were a much better team than how we performed at the end And I think a lot of us carried Well, I know I did carried a lot of everyone's really quiet Beauty of sports, right? You have the opportunity to fail and we didn't fail enough in the season to learn the lessons that we needed to learn And we have preached that in years past. We need to lose races You learn more from the losses than you do from the wins And so the lessons taking away from taking away from last year is how do we build a better team? How do we have stronger communication? How do we lean on each other a little bit more and those are things that I think have been fueling us quite a bit this season Or at least for me anyways You know in years past we've done team dinners or we've gone to play laser tag And I said hey, we're not gonna do that stuff We're gonna do a different type of team building right this year so that when we get to nationals And we were coming off the water off of a pretty tough loss We're gonna be able to turn to each other and say hey, we got this. Let's build each other back up. So That's what we've been doing this spring and this fall I think it's been motivating rather than debilitating and so now we'll get to the highlights of this season the Instagram version but also the real version As John King mentioned earlier. Oh, he didn't mention it But he mentioned Matthew and I are going to the Pan Am games But also Matthew is was just selected to go the single-handed nationals later on this season To not mention the highlights from sort of last spring Molly Matthews who's here was named as an ICSA All-American crew and just last yeah Just last night like a whole I don't know how many months later Just last night nine sailors from the team were named to the ICSA All-academic team and they are all in the room tonight, which is awesome We have Hank Bailey will Bailey Katie Ben-ha, Aiden, Cameron Wood and Grace Woodcock all made up the all-academic team and a huge boost Stephanie Hudson who's coming to practice coach practice once a week and is working specifically with our women's team to get them firing Which we're psyched about They just finished third at the Atlantic Coast Tournament last weekend at Brown and coaches. We are delighted We are delighted to welcome back down at St. Mary's at the Atlantic Coast Championship and Earlier today, we're sitting in third. I think they had a tough last set and they're sitting in six So we wish them all the luck going into tomorrow I know they can pull it together. They said it was really quite windy down there a lot of fun for the season So that's a quick snapshot what you see on Instagram is is somewhat of reality and then We're gonna keep plugging away We've got big goals again this year at the beginning of the year I said to the captains we had our preseason meetings set to the to the upperclassmen We're not messing around This is our year to really put it together and we got a lot of good lessons from last year So we're happy to take those forward I wanted to take a take a second to you know in in the captain's cup has been one of our biggest fundraisers of the year and the day of giving I've always like leaned on Riley eager giving him about three minutes notice to come up here and Try pledges to buy new sales or buy trailers for our j-22s or whatever the case is Whatever whatever big thing we're hoping for on our wish list the day of giving with structured a little bit differently and We wanted to I did a lot of outrage to all of our lumps and former folks who former parents and whatnot who aren't here today and they came in huge for the team During the day of giving more than a hundred donors to our sailing program over the day of giving with some more donations still coming in and It's really tremendous to have this level of support for the team from parents grandparents alumni friends of the program it is really really heartwarming and We need it. We definitely need all your support like I mentioned earlier one of the lessons that we learned last year We needed stronger communication. And so one of the things we want to do again is bring Betsy butter work butter Rick butter work not butterworth back to work with the team. She made a huge impact on our team in 2020 So we plan to use some of that for good Probably some of the money raised will go to offset some of our training training trips both the winter and the spring training trip and other Team team initiatives that like like I mentioned before but just intentional team bonding activities that we can do and our really critical training trips so Thank you to everybody who gave if If when I post the photos from today online, and you happened as As Emmett mentioned earlier, but if you happen to notice that you you were touching another boat I'll also post the link and if you want to make an extra donation as a result of you touching those other boats We would welcome that and Finally just to kind of wrap up the night. I want to thank again all the people who made tonight possible Some behind-the-scenes folks to start Heidi and her special events team in the back Who's always trying to keep me on time and focus? Very difficult wrangling me so she does a great job. I want to also thank our friends at Bon Appétit They there's nobody who takes more pride in food service than the folks at Bon Appétit I mean, I know I eat there at least twice a day But they love what they do they serve amazing food and they take a lot of pride in what they do So thank you guys for amazing lunch and dinner tonight We had a full alumni division this year and I can't thank the What Bob coil refers to as the usual suspects in the back tables 16? I think you guys are at but thank you guys for continuing to or I don't know where they are Anyways, oh there. They are there they are Thank you for continuing to show up and we appreciate you so much coming out in the pouring rain The newer alums class of 18 and 19 showing up in and 20 showing up in full force It's so much fun to see you guys I wish you could hang out more and you guys can come back and hang any time all the time I Have to go back to the list here just to make sure that I've got everybody but huge Thank you as I said to the McGraw family and the McGraw family foundation We'd like to thank the Matthews for donating the love boat to us today Thank you to Leibn's family the Wreckler family and we have the Ben Haas who have Kicked off they have led off a sailing ambassador program and they are We're really delighted that they were the first ones to jump on board with that and hopefully Kate will be reaching out to Invite more people to join our ambassador program Then the raw bar. Sorry the cocktail reception was sponsored by our trustee Marsha Morris The raw bar tonight was sponsored by the Matthews. Oh I read it in the wrong order my bad and then folks who's brought the sponsored programs Michael Reuter the fishers and Eric Stockey Thank you so much for all of your support and making today possible making our boats possible Making all that we do possible. Just close on. Oh, we're gonna invite Claire and Hank up Definitely not. Thank you for supporting the 19th annual captain's cup on behalf of all team captains myself Carly kiss who's like currently at ACC and Hank Bailey We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for coming And we also want to take some time to appreciate our alumni as well as all the families that help support this team We could not do it without you All right First let's start with our alumni the loudest group in the room very thankful for all the alumni that uh, I'm just gonna grab this Very thankful all the alumni that show up and just make Roger it is today. Hi Darren I want to give a shout out to cam wood For donating 400 pairs of clipper boots to the team at the beginning of the year If you are wondering what those swaggy white and yellow boots are those are Cameron woods clipper boots And the whole team has been rocking them all season and we've been loving them. So thank you so much cam But uh, overall, I just want to say, um, you know, we have the most incredible reliable and generous alumni network that an undergraduate sailor could ever ask for We love that so many alumni return to campus to assist coach at practice And while our focus is to be the best on the water our alumni network helps us to also be the best on shore Our alumni our alumni continue to be available to our current sailing program Whether it's postgraduate advice helping soon to be graduates open doors to the corporate world Or simply exchanging anecdotal sailing Sailing experiences that only an older and wiser fellow sailor can provide As a soon to be alumni, I look forward to being a part of your legacy Now for a little bit about the families your support definitely does not go unnoticed There's no way we could compete at the highest level of sailing without you Some big shout outs one to the frang kyle is currently not here. He's at accs But his family is always just supporting us at regatta bringing us doughnuts everything to get through the day The dales who have hosted st. Croix winter training trip for the last two years. Let's hear it for them Shout out to the mafios who provided meals to us during last nationals You guys are phenomenal and this program is so lucky to have you all And a major one to the entire snider family who hosted us Last weekend at the nevins when things didn't go exactly to plan We are so lucky to have you as part of our big community And with that being said, please enjoy the rest of your evening and understand the huge value add to our community go hawks Sorry one more announcement. Um D brief video will be at eight evelin drive Max said for every time on the video we see him hit a boat. He'll donate $100. So We're in cows many times eight evelin drive. Let's see It's it's eight evelin drive riley And let's call that nine nine p.m report time nine p.m at eight evelin drive