Journey

Some people say that you don't know where you are going until you know where you have been. I think this is true in some sense. With me, I will never forget where I have been in rowing. I now have a pretty good idea of where I am going.

I started rowing when I was a freshman for my high school. I got into it because of doing a 2 week learn to row program in the summer before entering high school. Since I had been playing volleyball after school in middle school, I decided that I would play volleyball in the fall, then row in the spring.

During my first season as a high school rower, I basically just learned to improve my technique on the water and get some racing experience. My first 2K ever I got around a 9:45. Obviously not an incredible time, but I didn't know the difference yet, all I knew was that it was hard but I wanted to row. I rowed this season stroking the 4th boat, which consisted of novices.

Since my freshman year I improved a lot in my technique and especially on the erg. The next year, as a sophomore, I broke 8 minutes on the erg by 1 second. I slowly improved and by my junior year I hit 7:45 for a 2K. At this point, I knew that I was going to be competitive in rowing. I rowed a double at the Stotesbury Regatta, the biggest high school regatta, and we did really well. We ended up placing 4th overall in a pretty competitive field. This was a really proud moment for me in high school rowing.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue to row in college, but I was looking at schools that had a crew team in the north east because I wanted to stay close to home. I visited a few and had decided that I would definitely row in college, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to go to a Division 1 school. I was recruited by a few schools, including some D1, and also a D2 school. But the winter of my senior year I was recruited to the University of Louisville. It was a school that had never crossed my mind, in fact I had never heard of it or even knew how to say Louisville. But I talked with the coaches (one, an alumni of my high school, and the daughter of my high school coach), and I planned to go out and visit the school.

I went down on my official visit, and was impressed by everything. It seemed to be a great fit for me and I loved what they had to offer, which included a rowing scholarship. I couldn't believe how great it was and thought that this opportunity was too good to be true. They recruited me there with a 7:40 erg time and I ended up signing the National Letter of Intent and committed to row with the University of Louisville starting in the fall of 2009. And that's basically how I got from high school rowing to college rowing a D1 university.