I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
When I decided to join the team, I knew almost nothing about crew. All I knew was that I wouldn’t have to take a P.E. class and that the team was co-ed which, as a 14-year-old girl at an all-girls school, was enough. Early mornings? No problem, I thought. Full body work out? Easy! Ice cold water with leeches? Wait a minute …
So, needless to say, I was in for a huge surprise. I still remember my first day of practice. I reluctantly rolled myself out of bed at 4:30 a.m., wondering why I had been stupid enough to think early mornings would be easy. My dad drove me to practice and I sat in the car, grumpily staring out the window, drinking hot chocolate and wishing I had tried out for soccer instead. I was thoroughly unprepared, wearing tennis shoes, track pants and a huge sweatshirt to keep myself warm.
Practice started at 5 a.m. My teammates and I lined up on the shore by the boat house; a motley crew to be sure. We tried to focus on the instructions given to us by the coach, a stern-looking woman greatly lacking any sense of humor, but we were too distracted by the varsity boys and girls carrying boats to the water, strolling right in as if the water was warm.
Then it was our turn to carry the boats, which, as it turned out, was much harder than the varsity teams made it look.
“Ready, and up,” our coach shouted, and we raised the boat above our heads.
At 5 foot 2 and 100 pounds, I wasn’t a whole lot of help. Even standing on tip-toe I couldn’t hold up the boat, not even when it rested on everyone else’s shoulders. I just stood there with my hands high in the air, pretending to help so that the coach wouldn’t yell at me.
“You should be a coxswain,” everyone on my team kept telling me. “You’re the perfect size.”
What they really meant was that I was too small to row, but I was determined to prove that, despite my size, I still had power.
“Now, after you put the boat in the water, you want to get in fast and wipe off your legs,” the coach said. “There are leeches in the water and they’ll stick if you’re in too long.”
We started to laugh, thinking she was joking, but her face remained stoic. No, she wasn’t joking. There really were leeches in the water.
Slowly, we hobbled along, carrying the boat down to the water. Those of us without proper water shoes had to walk barefoot, cutting our feet on the sharp shells that littered the shore.
We reached the water’s edge and just stood there, confused as to how to turn the boat around and place it safely in the water. The coach, who was growing increasingly impatient, told us to just drop it in.
So we did and, with a giant splash that drenched all eight of us, the boat was almost ready to go. After loading the oars and pushing off the shore, we were on our way.
I still remember how it felt for the first time, my oar powering through the water, occasionally getting caught on a wave and popping out. Before long, we managed to row in unison; fast, vigorous strokes that pushed our boat forward in an abrupt jerking motion. I hardly even noticed the shooting pain from the shell fragments stuck in my feet or the burn of using my entire body to power each stroke of my oar. Everyone on the boat was smiling with glee. We were doing it! We were moving, and we were going fast!
And then came the boys’ varsity team, passing us in seconds without even breaking a sweat.
So, okay, maybe we weren’t going that fast. But for our first time out on the water, we weren’t half bad.
Unfortunately, our luck ended there. My boat didn’t win a single race the entire year. Half way through the season, our coach pretty much gave up on us, choosing to just let us circle around the bay rather than offering us guidance for improvement. But we didn’t care; we had more fun than anyone else on the team. It wasn’t about winning, it was about camaraderie, and nothing bonds a group of girls together tighter than waking up before the sun is out to brave leeches, ice cold water and a coach who completely ignored us.
I didn’t join the crew team my sophomore year; once was enough. But looking back, the year I was on crew was the year that I grew up. I joined the team as a way to avoid responsibility and meet boys, but I left feeling proud of myself for accomplishing something, even though I never took home a medal. So maybe they were right; maybe I wasn’t cut out to row and should have been a coxswain instead. Regardless, I achieved what I set out to do: I proved that I had power simply by not giving up.
I learned that life isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about sharing the funny stories you remember years later.
Photo credit: Sport-Graphics.com
2001 Southwest Regionals, Sacramento, California
(I can be spotted second from the back looking in the wrong direction!)
