Oklahoma City plays host to USRowing Masters National Championships

It's unlike any other rowing venue in the United States. The designers behind the project are trying to make Oklahoma City one of the centers of aquatic sport in the United States.

Two of the boathouses and the Chesapeake Finish Line Tower have been built, and the project is expected to continue through 2015.

This week, it is the site of the 2011 USRowing Masters National Championships.

“It's great,” said 34-year-old Roger Schiller of Austin Rowing Club in Austin, Texas. “It's the first time I've been here. It's nice, really first class. I've never seen anything like it.”

Schiller came with a large contingent from his club to row in several of the 58 events Austin is entered in.

“There are only a few places in the country that have kind of a regatta in box concept down, like Sacramento and Oak Ridge, and this is one of them too,” he said.

Who would have thought of developing a major rowing center in the oil, natural gas and livestock city of Oklahoma City?

Mike Knopp, for one.

Knopp, an attorney who grew up in Minnesota, lived in Maryland in high school watching Naval Academy crews, and then rowed in a club program at Oklahoma State University. He later started the first rowing program at Oklahoma City University and saw a chance to introduce rowing to the city using municipal and corporate funding.

“This was the time of (MAPS), a sales tax driven, quality of life improvement initiative that was one of the largest in the country, and it was all about making Oklahoma City a place where people would want to live.”