Before they arrive in Storrs and see a flyer that piques their curiosity and competitive nature, most members of the Husky rowing team have never lifted a boat or held an oar. With few exceptions, the majority of the team spent their high school years competing in a variety of sports like soccer, track and field, cross country, basketball, field hockey, lacrosse, or softball.
Yet by the time they have spent as many as four years rising before the sun to practice on Coventry Lake and enduring the pain of winter workouts on a rowing machine called an ergometer, being a rower becomes a defining part of their UConn experience.
“At this point, I can’t really imagine not doing it,” says Andriel Doolittle ’12 (CLAS), who played basketball and softball in high school. “For four years here, it’s what I’ve done.”
Seeing the flyers in dining halls and having conversations with members of the rowing team encourages new recruits to sign up as walk-ons – student-athletes who pay their own way at the University but try to become members of a team. As in other sports, if they are successful, some walk-ons have the chance to eventually earn a partial scholarship as a student-athlete competing at the highest level of intercollegiate sports.
Yet despite the students’ lack of previous experience, head coach Jennifer Sanford-Wendry has found a formula for success in developing a rowing team made up of athletes who excelled in other sports before entering UConn.
In recent years, the Huskies novice eight boat won the Dad Vail Regatta – the culmination of the collegiate rowing season – and finished second at the Big East Championship. This past fall, the varsity eight finished third at the Head of the Charles, the world’s largest two-day rowing event. The Huskies again will participate in the Dad Vail this year from May 11 to 13 on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, which is the largest collegiate regatta in the United States, attracting 120 teams and 3,500 student-athletes.
“Part of the reason we have success is they’re all starting at the same point,” Sanford-Wendry says of introducing her recruits to the sport. “It’s just a very slow process in the fall getting them to learn how to row. The tough stuff comes after that. Then you start mixing them with the more experienced guys.”
Kaitlyn Clarke ’12 (ENG), a team captain this year, ran track and cross country in high school and had some exposure to rowing from her grandfather. After seeing a recruiting flyer, she decided to attend a meeting to learn more.
“You could see the connection between the girls on the team, the bond they had formed,” she says. “I missed the team aspect of sports. They showed a slide show, pictures from the [previous] year. I got so caught up in the fun they were having and the beauty of the sport.”
Julia Roth ’14 (CLAS) recalls that at her first team practice, she wondered why so much time was spent practicing just lifting the boat into the air.
“There was a lot to learn the first day,” she says. “How to put [the boat] in the water, where the oars go; but once you get it, it’s very rhythmic, so you can just go with the flow.”
Sanford-Wendry says that having good, all-around athletic skill helps those who want to learn rowing to succeed.
“For most of them by the end of their third season they’re usually right in there with everyone else, from a technical standpoint,” she says. “Usually there is a big transition between first and second year. A lot of people make advances in the fall after their first full year. Then it’s just a matter of getting better as an athlete.”
Doolittle says that as in many sports, one of the most difficult parts of rowing is the mental discipline required, particularly because of the extreme physical nature of rowing. All athletic endeavors involve working through a pain threshold, however training on the erg machine, and the all-out effort required during the rapid pace of a race over just a few minutes, tests everyone in the boat.
“You know it’s going to hurt no matter what,” Doolittle says. “You have to mentally prepare yourself and push through the pain so you’re getting ahead. It’s mostly mental every time you get in the water.”
For Roth, now in her first year as a rower, there is the recognition that she has the opportunity to improve her skills to help her teammates.
“I’m still very new [to rowing],” she says. “My skills need a lot of work; trying to pull everything together is tough. I know that with enough strokes on the water and support from the team I’ll be able to get it all together and it will feel just awesome.”
For the student-athletes, there is also the understanding that when their days competing are in the past, they have been introduced to an activity they can enjoy in the future.
“You’re really building something that you can have for the rest of your life,” Roth says. “It’s an amazing experience to have when you’re young and in college. [During practice], there’s this one part when we’re up near the island. The trees are black because it so dark. The sun is just hitting the water. It’s very beautiful out in the morning. That’s very nice.”