I\u2019m using this particular fun fact for two reasons.\u00a0 First, because I was just reminded of it by a friend and teammate, and second, because the crew team\u2019s first race is this coming Saturday, so the topic of mascots seemed appropriate.<\/p>\n
If you look at the women\u2019s crew team\u2019s three-page, color-coded spring training plan, you would see that we\u2019re already halfway down the second page.\u00a0 We\u2019re seven weeks through the thirteen-week season (which doesn\u2019t include the four-week post-season, although we certainly have that in our minds as we aim for our thirteenth consecutive bid to the NCAA Championships).\u00a0 For a lot of people, it\u2019s weird that we\u2019re at this point in the semester \u2013 right after the halfway mark, three-quarters of the way through the school year \u2013 and we haven\u2019t even raced yet.\u00a0 What have we been doing, stuck in the erg room, blasting music through windows gaping to try and exhale body-heated air?\u00a0 Why have we spent so many mornings up before sunrise, in the rain, in the cold (or, alternatively, in the monochrome of a clouded sunrise or the glory of a clear one, pinks and golds over American Lake)?<\/p>\n
My older sister started rowing when she was a sophomore in high school because there were cute boys on the team.\u00a0 I joined the team the next year, when I was a freshman, just to give it a try.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t intend to stick with it all through high school, and the thought of being a collegiate student-athlete never even crossed my mind.\u00a0 (Possibly because I wasn\u2019t very good.)<\/p>\n
As a senior at Puget Sound, I\u2019ve been realizing (but also sort of trying to avoid thinking about) how much this last season means to me.\u00a0 Every season has been important \u2013 even choosing to study abroad, which was during a fall semester and therefore not a championship season, was difficult.\u00a0 After my freshman year, when I had seen our opponents (on both the regional and national level) and understood the history and the traditions of this team, both of which can be boiled down into \u201cwe like winning things and goofing off while doing so,\u201d I knew that I wanted this team to be better by the end of my college career than it was when I had joined.\u00a0 And we weren\u2019t exactly slacking at that point, either.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s why my alarm is set for 4:30 am.\u00a0 Because I am not a naturally athletic person, and I know that I need to put in a lot of work if I want to keep improving.\u00a0 And I want to know that, when we line up against Western Washington and PLU and Lewis and Clark and Humboldt State (whose mascot, incidentally, is the Lumberjack \u2013 a term specific to the East Coast, therefore giving us the pedantic high ground over them) and whomever else that we are well prepared.\u00a0 As Thomas Jefferson (allegedly) said, \u201cI\u2019m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m using this particular fun fact for two reasons.\u00a0 First, because I was just reminded of it by a friend and teammate, and second, because the crew team\u2019s first race is this coming Saturday, so the topic of mascots seemed … Continue reading