Six days a week, members of Texas Crew rise before the sun for a strict 5:15 a.m. call time to row across Lady Bird Lake.

Texas Crew is a student-run rowing club at the University of Texas that has seen unprecedented success in the past few years. Last year, the men’s varsity, men’s novice and women’s novice 4+ squads took home gold in the American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championship Regatta.

This year, they are preparing to do it again.

Rees Kline, civil engineering sophomore and men’s varsity squad captain, was one of the rowers in the novice boat that won last year’s championship at nationals in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He had never rowed prior to joining Texas Crew.

“It was really an amazing experience last year, being able to win that national championship with a boat full of amazing guys,” Kline said. “I remember thinking even back then — what do I need to do, starting now … to prepare for next year?”

Kline is one of many fighting for a spot in the competitive varsity men’s boat for regionals and nationals. John Chaney, neuroscience junior and Texas Crew president, said rowers “seat race” to determine who gets a spot on the boat for regattas.

“Basically, we have two side-by-side boats, and we’re making switches to see which person is the fastest,” Chaney said. “(It’s) a really standard way of measuring against each other … to put together the fastest boat possible.”

Improvement aside, Texas Crew was left in a scramble to find a new coaching staff before the season even started. Its previous coach, Sean McKenna — who led the varsity men’s squad to an undefeated season and a national title last year — accepted a position at Notre Dame over the summer.

Joyce Xu, psychology senior and co-captain for the varsity women’s squad, said she feels like her abilities have plateaued due to the recent coaching restraints.

“Right now, we only have two full-time coaches, which is very hard when you have four separate squads with varying levels of technical ability,” Xu said. “We’re in a very unfortunate circumstance, where there’s just too little coaches for too many rowers who want to be better.”

In addition to coaching difficulties, Texas Crew also has to hold various fundraisers throughout the year to pay for staff, equipment and travel costs. Anjali Gururaj, corporate communications junior and second-year rower, leads these events as the organization’s fundraising chair. She said the team’s biggest contributor is its alumni network, the Texas Crew Foundation.

“(Our alumni) know that we are a scrappy team. They know what it takes to make this team run,” Gururaj said. “This (is) a student-built program, and any year that we don’t receive enough funding, we’re not able to live up to that legacy, and we’re not able to perform our best.”

The Texas Crew squads will compete at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta April 18 and 19. The qualifying boats will advance to the ACRA National Championship Regatta May 15-17.

“We’re all putting in the work, maybe more so than we have in previous semesters,” Chaney said. “This might be a little cocky of me to say, but I’m not worried about nationals.”