I got the rowing thing dialed in around here. I PM'd you with a good level of Rowing Superiority Guy shit.
poast it here, love to read it myself
Alright...I will humor you guys with the rowing nerd stuff.
1. Are scholarships offered in this sport?
Women's rowing at most Power 5 schools is NCAA governed and had about 16 full rides. Men's Rowing is not NCAA but is a Varsity Sport still at power programs like Washington or Cal. Most schools it's just a club team. There are about 8 to 10 full rides at UW but they are privately endowed and don't come out of the general AD budget. In my era, in 90's, there were no schollies for the guys and they only had just started for the women.
2. What draws one to become a rower?
Sport of tall guys with huge motors not good enough for ball sports like hoops or football. I rode mt bikes in high school high up in the Wasatch Range which gave me a high pain tolerance and the requisite big motor.
3. Do people row prior to college, such as high school, clubs or some kind of little league?
Now days at UW most everyone on the team rowed at a junior national team level in HS. In my era, half of the guys never rowed in HS. I didn't row in HS but was recruited in the sense that I was 6'6" and that helped me get in the school.
4. Other than rowing itself, how do you train?
Little running, but mostly it's Concept II Rowing Ergometer which is the single best piece of all around fitness equipment ever invented. Seriously.
5. How many miles per hour do you get the boat going?
Race is 2000 meters and typical time for elite men's team is 5 mins 40 sec do the math
6. Didn't even fucking know Pac-12 rowing was a thing, thought it was an east coast, Ivy League sport. So is it just UW, WSU, Cal and Stanford? (I looked at UW schedule)
Only 4 men's school's in Pac have Varsity Rowing: Cal, UW, Stanford and OSU. Only UW and Cal are competitive at a Natty level. All of the schools have women's teams I think except for maybe AZ. Cal and UW have dominated the sport for the past 20 years with Harvard and Browne being in the mix from time to time as well. Really only 5 or 6 schools care enough about Men's Rowing to win a national title.
7. Is it as demanding and time consuming as other collegiate sports?
Yes
8. What are the categories of competition?
Every Freshman rows on the Frosh team and then there are races for Varsity 8, JV 8 and Varsity 4. Think of it being like the bench gets to race too since you can sub in your second string during the middle of a race, but you still need JV and Varsity 4 boats to develop a program.
9. Do people compete in the Olympics prior to college, during or after?
Yes, most elite guys in college are on the U-23 national team and them from there some guys go onto the Olympics but usually after they graduate
10. Proper use of the word rowing vs crew?
Either are appropriate, but it's either called the Men's Rowing Team or Men's Crew; you don't say Men's Crew Team as this is like saying Men's Team Team if that make sense.
11. When did you row, were you on one of the national championship teams and include any bitchin stories.
I got 4th at Nationals my Frosh year and won 2 Pac Titles as well. Won a quasi national title (LOL) in the Varsity 4 in that we killed Cal at Pac 12's who then won the NT, they didn't take our boat.
12. Any post graduation benefits?
Job networking I suppose - old boy's network in Seattle 
