My high school novice team won our first race of the season. But as a former coach used to say, novice races aren’t won by skill, but by the boat that manages to go in the straightest line.

I started rowing when I was a freshman in high school.  My sister had joined the team the year before (because there were cute guys), and I joined because she joined.  I probably weighed about 105 pounds when I started, and the first 2k test that I ever pulled was over ten minutes.  (For context, a decent female high school rower would have a 2k time in the low 8 minutes or below.)  I decided that I would row for a couple of years, but quit before my senior year so I could concentrate on other things, like piano.

Well, sophomore year I found myself in the lightweight 4+ boat, which had won the state championships the year before and of which I was in awe.  It was fun to do well in races and see the improvement that I had made from the year before, so I decided that I couldn’t possibly quit on my high school teammates but that there was no way I was going to row in college – I couldn’t handle the pressure, and besides, I didn’t think I was good enough.

Junior year, I started looking at colleges, and always eventually found myself on their athletics websites, looking for crew teams.  Whenever I could, I would fill out one of the online “prospective student-athlete” forms, but didn’t expect anything to come of it.

Senior year, the head crew coach for Franklin & Marshall College contacted me, and that was when the idea of rowing in college became possible to me.  We scheduled a meeting, during which he asked where else I was applying.  I mentioned Puget Sound sort of as an aside – it was so much farther away than the rest of my schools, I hadn’t even visited, no one from my area had really heard of it, but somehow it was still on my list.

“Oh,” he said, “Puget Sound has the best DIII team on the West Coast.”

Fast forward a few years, and the spring championship season of my final year of representing the University of Puget Sound on the water is beginning.  (Racing schedule is here!) I don’t know what will happen this season, but I am proud to be a part of the legacy that is Logger Crew.