As one of the founders of the Scullers Head of the Potomac Regatta along with Coit Liles and Charlie Butt, I'm disappointed by the decision to drop the word "Scullers" from its designation.
While PBC has always embraced sweep rowing and sculling (along with a range of other paddle sports), Charlie in particular wanted to encourage more sculling even -- or perhaps especially- among his high school and junior rowers as a means of making them better rowers, sweep or sculling, by mastery of sculling balance and technique. We added sweep events to accommodate local crews but spotlighted sculling by having an octuple event, multiple quads including coxed quads for the the more novice scullers. We intended it to be a unique event on the fall rowing calendar. It's sad to see it become just another fall head race. It would seem easy to covey the fact that sweep events were included could be done by adding simple footnote or astrck after "Scullers" to indicate that sweep rowing events would be included.
I noticed that the announcement also refers to the regatta without including "Charles S. Butt" in the title. Is Charlie's name also being dropped? If so, that's of lot of special history and identity to drop for no particular gain.
Erik Meyers