I hate mornings.  I am pretty much opposite of a morning person.  Yet for some reason, I was crazy enough to wake up to a screeching 5AM alarm Monday through Friday for four, long years.  However, at the time I didn’t call myself crazy, I called myself a rower.

Peeling myself out of bed to row a $30,000 shell on the Ohio River when it was sometimes below 30 degrees doesn’t really sound exciting to most college students.  It didn’t necessarily sound “exciting” to me either, but I had to keep my mind on where it was getting me: scholarship, character, leadership experience and more.  I always had to look at the bigger picture to get through the day, because each practice was a struggle to make it to the next.  Just when you think you’ve been pushed passed your physical limits, you’re shoved even further which is when it becomes mental. You just have to constantly reassure yourself that you can do it and you will finish, and quitting just isn’t an option.

My athletic career began when I was 4 years old, and in my entire life I have never experienced a more physically and mentally demanding sport.  Each day that I woke up and made it through another double practice was an accomplishment in itself, so one can only imagine how I felt when I not only graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Louisville, but had completed my fourth and final year of [rowing] eligibility as well.  In my mind, the BA degree is overshadowed by my rowing career.  I find what I learned from four years of collegiate rowing more beneficial than what I learned in four years of classes.  Building character and having life experiences gives me more confidence that I can take on tasks in the “real world” than being able to recite Shakespeare or knowing that “osmosis” is the diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane.  Knowing I can go through a solid week of Spring training while studying for finals and come out alive, lets me know that I can do just about anything.

When interviewed for jobs, I often get the comments like, “You seem so confident…does that come from previous success?” All I can think is, of course!  I succeeded in competing four years at the Divison-1 level on a Nationally top-20 ranked collegiate team in one of the world’s most demanding sports, I think I can do the job put in front of me

It sounds absurd- but if you gave up the “normal” college student life of partying, skipping class and late nights for 5AM practices in the pouring rain, crying because you’re severely dehydrated, bleeding hands with open wounds all while not knowing if you could take another stroke (and don’t forget the full-time classes and having to keep a good GPA), you’d think that life after rowing wasn’t so hard.  I would write a hundred papers if my boss told me to, and not think for one second that I couldn’t do it.  Now,  if she tells me to do a triathlon, take a final exam, and then come back in the afternoon and beat my previous triathlon time, I’d have to think “Not again!” and possibly second guess myself.

Since I was in elementary school, I’ve played sports year-round.  When I graduated college, it was the first time in my life that I didn’t have a practice to go to, a game/event to worry about or train for, and it felt awkward!  I have since joined some coed-softball teams but they hardly count considering we don’t even practice, but it does help fill the “team” void somewhat.  Without somewhere to always be or something to always worry about, it makes my 40-hour a week job seem like cake!  Now, I’m not saying that I don’t work hard because I am very dedicated to any job I have, but I say it feels like cake in the way that I can’t believe that it is all I have to do.  When I was a student/rower, I also constantly held a part-time job, so I was literally doing something everyday of the week for the majority of the day. 

Rowing may have been one of the most difficult things I ever completed (and you’re talking to someone who spent two years of her life in physical therapy from two reconstructive knee surgeries), but I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to have such a life-changing experience.  It’s made me the person that I am today- as do most experience people have in their lives- but I think my character and work ethic wouldn’t be as strong if I hadn’t completed my collegiate rowing career.  Even though I feel lost at times, wondering why I don’t have more to worry about, I keep amazing myself at the responsibilities I can handle and the tasks I can successfully complete, and I have to thank rowing for that!