The Cal men's rowing team enters this season in a position any program would love: as defending national champions. But as the Bears prepare to open the season this weekend, head coach Scott Frandsen isn't dwelling on the team's recent success.

"I've been trying to reframe that as we're not defending anything," Frandsen said. "This is a whole new campaign with a whole new team and this coming weekend is the first opportunity to go and test our speed and try out some different lineups. Take that first step into external competition. We've had six or seven months of internal competition and now we get to go and race other programs."

The team will begin its 2023 campaign by splitting up the boats between a pair of races. The freshman 8 and 4V will be competing at the California Challenge in Newport Beach on Saturday while the V8, 2V and 3V will head to the Las Vegas Invitational in Henderson, NV for races Saturday and Sunday.

Without having an official preseason, this weekend is a great opportunity for Frandsen to see what he has with his boats and what potential future lineups can look like.

"If anything, these are the preseason races, and then it gets more serious as we get into San Diego Crew Classic and all of our duals in April," Frandsen said. "We're going to go try three different lineups in Las Vegas and continue to look at different combinations and people in different seats and see what really starts to click and build future lineups for the second half of April and all of May around what we see in these initial races."

As the season gets going, there will be plenty of tests for the team, including a few races that Frandsen is especially anticipating.

"The Washington dual (April 22) is always a pretty big one on our on our calendar," Frandsen said. "They've been our rival for over a century. I think our two
programs have been toward the top of collegiate rowing for almost all of that time. In the Pac-12 Challenge (April 8-9), we'll likely race Wisconsin and maybe Syracuse, Boston University or Northeastern. There's been a concerted effort over the last year or two or three to try to increase the variety of who we race."

While the IRA National Championships marked the official end of the 2022 season, it didn't mean the end of high-level competition for several Cal rowers, who went on to compete at the international level over the summer. A large group of athletes raced at Henley Royal Regatta with many continuing on to U23 and World Rowing Championship success. Those experiences will provide dividends for this upcoming campaign.

"I think it just improves our durability through the ups and downs," Frandsen said. "The experience you gain through those races, the inner confidence that you build through all of those experiences, makes you just a little bit better at managing the ups and downs the racing season this spring."

This year's team also boasts the advantage of having several rowers who have competed or have legitimate aspirations at qualifying for the Olympics. While that may present a challenge for most programs to balance the individual goals of rowers with the ultimate team goal of winning a national championship, it isn't something that concerns Frandsen.

"I think the reason we had a chance to win last year and so far so good with this year is no one's too good for the team," Frandsen said. "Be that an Olympics or World Championships or whatever it is, it's not more important than the team. Rowing is a very unique sport where you need that individual ego, you need those individual ambitions, but you need that within a functioning team atmosphere. It's a credit to a lot of our top guys that it all works with us. The basis of the personalities at the top is very much team-oriented and focused on winning or competing to win at the IRA."

While some might say the team has gotten even better than last year because of the experience gained and some of the new additions, Frandsen isn't taking anything for granted going into the 2023 season.

"I think the expectations are the same as every year," Frandsen said. "I think we've had a really productive last six months and hope to continue to put ourselves in a position to compete or to give ourselves the chance to win. Compared to last year, we're in a good spot. But there are a thousand things to happen or to avoid in the next three months, and that's the daily challenge."

For further coverage of Cal men's rowing, follow the Bears on Twitter (@CalMrowing), Instagram (@calmrowing) and Facebook (Cal Crew).