Last night I had the opportunity to help out a group of novices who have diligently been attending practices late in the evenings for the past week or so, and I noticed right away that they were very unique as a whole. The young men and women I demonstrated for paid close attention to my body position, rhythm, catch and finish timing, as well as the different parts of the stroke (legs, body, arms, body, legs). Novice coach Chris Niebauer studied each rower and corrected certain parts of their technique, which each person was extremely receptive to and attempted to apply immediately.

In my eight years of rowing, I have not experienced a group of novices who caught on as quickly as they have, and I am mighty impressed. At the end of practice I informed them of how well I thought they were doing, and to not get discouraged as it was only their second week of training in an entirely new sport.

A couple of girls stayed behind afterward and chatted with Coach Niebauer and me, and they seemed very excited to be part of the rowing team. Though I only jumped up and down two or three times throughout the course of our conversation due to excitement, I described the experiences of two of our current varsity rowers who were once novices. Alicia “Petey” Peterson and Leah Niecgorski also went through similar experiences, learning how to row and entering a whole new world of shells and regattas and riggers and feathering, competing with experienced freshman recruits for spots in boats, but who ended up rowing in the varsity four that came very close to winning a few key races that year. I let them know it is possible for a novice to make a varsity boat, so they shouldn’t give up even when it gets tough.

I have to remind myself of that fact every so often throughout the year as well. When I think about the number of hours I spend a week balancing homework and training, there are definitely times when I want to throw in the towel. But then I think about Dad Vail ’08, where we lost to Grand Valley in the grand final by less than .3 seconds, and the 2008 NCAA Championships, where we lost to the University of California at San Diego in the heats by less than 2 seconds – and I think of what could have been. That thought alone is what inspires me to push harder this year, because I don’t want myself and my teammates to have to wonder what could have been; I want us to have already achieved it.