{"id":59974,"date":"2012-05-11T09:26:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T13:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=59974"},"modified":"2012-05-16T16:23:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T20:23:13","slug":"rowers-pull-together-with-athleticism-developed-in-other-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/05\/rowers-pull-together-with-athleticism-developed-in-other-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowers Pull Together with Athleticism Developed in Other Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andriel<\/a>
Andriel Doolittle '12 (CLAS), who played basketball and softball in high school, is a senior member of the Huskies rowing team. (Steve Slade '89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, I can\u2019t really imagine not doing it,\u201d says Andriel Doolittle \u201912 (CLAS), who played basketball and softball in high school. \u201cFor four years here, it\u2019s what I\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing the flyers in dining halls and having conversations with members of the rowing team encourages new recruits to sign up as walk-ons \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Yet despite the students\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the Huskies novice eight boat won the Dad Vail Regatta \u2013 the culmination of the collegiate rowing season \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the reason we have success is they\u2019re all starting at the same point,\u201d Sanford-Wendry says of introducing her recruits to the sport. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kaitlyn<\/a>
Kaitlyn Clarke '12 (ENG) ran track and cross country in high school. She is a captain for the rowing team this season. (Steve Slade '89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kaitlyn Clarke \u201912 (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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see the connection between the girls on the team, the bond they had formed,\u201d she says. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julia Roth \u201914 (CLAS) recalls that at her first team practice, she wondered why so much time was spent practicing just lifting the boat into the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot to learn the first day,\u201d she says. \u201cHow to put [the boat] in the water, where the oars go; but once you get it, it\u2019s very rhythmic, so you can just go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanford-Wendry says that having good, all-around athletic skill helps those who want to learn rowing to succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most of them by the end of their third season they\u2019re usually right in there with everyone else, from a technical standpoint,\u201d she says. \u201cUsually 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\u2019s just a matter of getting better as an athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know it\u2019s going to hurt no matter what,\u201d Doolittle says. \u201cYou have to mentally prepare yourself and push through the pain so you\u2019re getting ahead. It\u2019s mostly mental every time you get in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still very new [to rowing],\u201d she says. \u201cMy 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\u2019ll be able to get it all together and it will feel just awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really building something that you can have for the rest of your life,\u201d Roth says. \u201cIt\u2019s an amazing experience to have when you\u2019re young and in college. [During practice], there\u2019s this one part when we\u2019re up near the island. The trees are black because it so dark. The sun is just hitting the water. It\u2019s very beautiful out in the morning. That\u2019s very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a year of skill- and team-building, the Husky rowing team is poised to take part this weekend in the Dad Vail Regatta, the culmination of the season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":60020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-59974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 23:12:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59974"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60104,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59974\/revisions\/60104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/60020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59974"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=59974"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=59974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}