With its his­tor­ic boathouses and mon­u­ment to Olym­pic gold med­al­ist John B. Kel­ly, the Schuylkill has been at the epi­cen­ter of Amer­i­can row­ing going back to the 19th cen­tu­ry. But when it comes to the realities of mod­ern racing many race or­gan­iz­ers now­a­days head across the Ben Frank­lin Bridge to the Coop­er River. The riv­er got its big break in 1993 when Lake On­on­da­ga in Up­state New York flooded, prompting or­gan­iz­ers of the In­ter­col­le­giate Row­ing Association cham­pi­on­ship to find an al­ter­nate race site. With­in two years, the Camden County riv­er had be­come the fixed site for what most con­sid­er col­lege row­ing’s most im­por­tant race.  http://bit.ly/KicvjW