By Karen Garcia |
Grade: Sophomore
Hometown: Bellingham, WA
Position: Port
Were you a rower in high school?
No, actually, but I come from a huge sports family. Both of my parents were athletes in high school, and my brothers and I were all tri-sport athletes in high school. I started out as a ballerina and did 13 years of that. But I realized once I got to high school that I’m too tall to be a ballerina onstage—you all have to be the same height. So I did basketball, volleyball, and track.
So what was it like to transition from those sports into rowing?
It was hard, for sure—going from a ball sport to a sport that’s very repetitious, it’s very different. Rowing is less about your technique and more about your grit: Whose body can last longer, who can tolerate more pain? If your body isn’t performing the way it needs to, then you’re not going to win, whether you have good technique or not.
How was the transition mentally?
It’s harder, I think, as a rower, to find your role on the team. In basketball, for example, your role is very specific because you’re a rebounder, or a guard, or something else, and in rowing you’re doing the same thing as everyone else.
Is there a sense of competition among your teammates?
Oh, yeah, for sure. We get ranked every day. On the rowing machine we get feedback and are evaluated by numbers after every single stroke. It’s rough when you get bad numbers, but I’d say it’s friendly competition. In one aspect, you see someone’s numbers next to you and that makes you want to pull harder. In another, it just lets you know that you have good athletes around you. If another person excels, it’s going to help you, too.
Rowers have an infamously grueling schedule--early practice times, several practices a day. What keeps you going?
My teammates. The fact that you have a group of girls that are willing to put in the hard work, sweat—it makes you think, “If they can do it, I can do it.” Family’s a big thing, too. Having friends that don’t row, that don’t understand how hard you work can be helpful too, because it allows you to talk about something other than rowing.
How has your season been so far?
In the fall, we race longer, 6k pieces and in the spring we race 2k pieces, so our boat’s been working pretty hard. We got first place in our first race, so we kicked Seattle U’s butt. When we scrimmaged OSU, we fought hard, and although they might have taken us in a long piece, we took them a sprint piece. It’s going to be a good year.
