City teens get the chance to become crew members: Baltimore Rowing Club scholarship program offers minority students opportunity to excel.

Byline: Gadi Dechter

Jun. 24--About a year ago, Akeem Smith was a 220-pound football player at Cherry Hill's New Era Academy with slipping grades and a knack for getting into fights.

An administrator at the charter school encouraged the teenager to join an experimental program that initiates city youths into competitive rowing.

Today, Smith is 30 pounds leaner and a better student, and he hopes to attend college on a crew scholarship. "It keeps me out of trouble, believe it or not," the 17-year-old says with a bemused smile.

Success stories like these have prompted the nonprofit Baltimore Rowing Club to expand its pilot scholarship program for students at the Cherry Hill school -- which is near the club's boathouse -- to needy youths around the city.

Scholarship recipients become members of the rowing club's juniors team of 14- to 18-year-olds, joining paying students -- whose parents shell out about $700 a year -- from private and public schools in the region. The juniors compete against school teams and…