Personal Essay: What Is It Like To Pursue The Sport Of Crew

The wet tiles that were beneath my feet felt cold, and moist. The locker room was filled with the sound of scalding water slapping the tile floor harshly. The room felt hot and humid like a summer day in Florida. I could feel my anxiety burning within me, in the same way a fire burns down a forest. It grows profusely worse as the second hand on the clock above my locker ticks away. I quickly changed into my swim trunks, and crept into the swimming area with fear and anticipation. I tiptoed my way down the stairs that led into the pool. I could feel the brisk water slowly creep up my leg as I forced myself deeper and deeper. I was on my way to my mother who was going to try and teach me how to do a back float. I remember tipping

As I looked backed at what seemed to be a decent sized wave, I started paddling with all my might, digging through the water, deeper and deeper. The wave came closer and I felt a push from my cousin as I caught the wave. “Stand up” my cousin yelled behind me as the monstrous wave began to swallow me up. I stood up, rode the wave all the way to the shore, and fell in love with the sport of surfing. Since that day, I have loved everything one could ever love about the sport: The salty water as it touched my body, the push of the wave as it stood me up on my smooth yet sticky board, and the exhilarating rush that I felt after every perfect ride. But not quite everything about the sport came easy to me, it took a long ride to find the love I have for the sport today. When I first started competitively surfing, I

For the first time in our small rowing club’s history, we made it to the finals in what was our biggest regatta of the season. Unfortunately, our boat came in dead last...by a lot. We felt bad enough, but the last thing I expected was the outburst by one of the veterans. Having only a few months of rowing experience, I assumed his yelling at us was directed at me and my novice teammates. The scenario of confronting him was running through my head. By the time we stacked the boat back on the trailer, the thoughts myriad of thoughts through my mind were spoken. I spoke in a tone that my teammates have never seen before. I even surprised myself with how I stood up and defended myself and the other newer members.

My parents tell me that I took to swimming like... a fish takes to water. It is a safe place where I can float free of worries. Driven by passion and dedication, I decided to begin swimming competitively. Competitive swimming requires an intense level of determination and discipline. Forcing myself to get out of my warm bed at 5:30 in the morning to put on a still-slightly-damp swimsuit and stand in 40-degree weather waiting for practice to start. Putting up with limited lane space and irritating swimmers who think they are faster. Making a conscious effort to work on my stroke form, turns, touches, and techniques. The water becomes a whirlpool of injuries, losses, wins, friendships, enemies, and sickness. The water becomes home.

He tells me exactly when to stand up and releases me onto an incoming wave. There is absolutely nothing going through my head except for “get feet on board get feet on board get feet on board”. I get my feet onto the board and immediately fall over. Not so bad for the first run. I repeat the battle of getting back to the point in the water where the waves are no longer breaking. I get back onto the board. I am released by our instructor. I get my feet onto the board. I fall over. Rinse and repeat, indefinitely. By the end of our hour long session, my entire body is aching and I haven’t completely ridden to shore while standing on the board. Lauren has a bit more luck and rides in on her knees. I can already see bruises and cuts along my legs and we both feel as if we are going to pass out right there on the beach. We both also conclude that that was the most fun thing either of us has ever done.

When I first joined the North Attleboro Swim Team my freshman year of high school, I did not know what to expect. Prior to joining, I had never swam on a team before so it was a whole new experience to me. As the first week of swim started, I was apprehensive if I wanted to continue since I was not on the same caliber as my other teammates were. The practices were brutal but extremely rewarding, as I strived to prove myself and to my coaches. As my freshman season was under way, a couple of upperclassmen took

coxswain did not see the start signal. To quote the book, “The Husky Clipper, for a horrific moment, sat motionless at the line, dead in the water.” They were already quite behind and they had a sick rower. He was doing well until the coxswain asked to up the tempo. The ill rower did not respond. The coxswain tried again to no avail. As he was starting to get worried he decided to pass on the order to Joe hoping that the rest of the boat would follow Joe’s lead and pick up the pace as a team. Just as the coxswain leaned forward to tell Joe what he wanted, the sick rower seemed find strength in himself and the team picked up the pace. They were already far behind and had the odds stacked against them. Through shear will power, the U.S. crawled their way back to the front of the pack and won the race in a photo finish. It was so close, no one could tell right away who had actually won. This is the most prominent example of the ‘Boys in the Boat’ over coming difficult circumstances and finding a way to

One day when a rowing coach saw Joe practicing Gymnastics, he immediately knew that he would be a great rower and invited Joe to try out for rowing. For Joe, rowing came easy and after a few months in bulky training boats, he was moved to the real deal: a 60-foot racing shell. But it was not close to over for

As i read pages 114-115, i understood the anticipation of the rowing race in poughkeepsie. First, as the coaches held final workouts at night, i imagined their drive to win when they would go over rowing strategies. On the race day, as i read the passage, i witnessed a large crowd of people that were filled with excitement. Also, as if i were there myself, i tried to imagine the scent of fuel from the coaches’ boats. I felt the freshmen’s team will to win, along with the coaches.

It wasn’t till I came on my first visit to Jewell that I was told that I actually could swim for Jewell if I wanted to, and I did want to. Coach Gole told me that if I wanted to swim for Jewell that I should probably join a club team and recommended two that were in the area, Tsunami and Club North. Two of my three high school coaches also coached on Club North, the third coach was responsible for keeping track of people who wanted to join the team and getting them into the correct place, and many of the fastest kids on my team swam for Club North, which made it a no brainer for me to request to join that team. Since my assistant coach was in charge of the waiting list, se pulled some strings and got me on Club North in November, shortly after high school season ended. At first I was overwhelmed by the difficulty of the practices compared to what I was used to, and I felt like the slowest one in my group. It took longer than it should have for me to get back into shape because I was also the manager of the girls’ high school team and I often missed practice due to the fact that I was at the girls’ meets. I paid little attention to that fact because I loved being the manager. It was so much fun to be a part of the girls’ team, to get to know each and every girl and to watch them

Joining a team with kids ranging from five to eighteen, it can be hard. It seemed as if everyone already knew each other. At first, I felt like an outcast, but not for long, once I proved I could swim fast. It took time learning names and getting used to the practices, but in the end my entrance into this group was easy compared to the practices I had to go through. My exit from DCPR was much harder, the coach’s said a few things about us at the award ceremony and then the team gave us a card and best wish in college and off we go. The coaches, swimmers, and the swimmers’ parents had become my second family. We all believed in hard work, having fun, and racing when the time came. Our norms were putting in the effort when swimming and if you did, it would pay off in the meets. Slacking off was never rewarded and always sanctioned. Either the coach or your parent, or both, would yell at you. At 12 I was given the infamous nickname, Snax. It was not necessarily a bad nickname; it came about because I had a habit of always having snacks. We all got nicknames, they were our folkways. It was just part of the culture of being on the team. Our more was practice; it started at 6 every day and had a set

In the picture I chose, I am doing one of my passions, kayaking. I have been involved in kayaking for 5 years. It is a large aspect of my life as I spend between nine to fifteen hours a week training and have traveled across Canada for various competitions. When I started kayaking, I went to a weeklong summer camp and fell in love with the sport. I then joined racing program, which lasted the entire summer. During this time, I had the opportunity to begin training in various team boats. As I spent more time training, I became stronger and faster so my coach invited me to join the developmental high performance group. In this group, I spent more time training vigorously and became

Almost every country which competes in the Olympics has a crew team. NMUSD does not accept the fact that rowing is a sport. The current athletes on the NAC Jr Crew that attend Newport Harbor are being wronged by the district. A sport is a sport whether or not it is threaded through the high school. On top of the denial of an “Athletic Schedule” to rowers, the district has given the NAC Jr Crew little to no information on why rower’s schedules changed. The rowing community is large at Newport Harbor, and as Golan puts it, “the school is isolating part of its own population for no

The most important part of being a rower, is that each rower is in perfect sequence with the other rowers. The timing of each pull on the oar was important in both speed and direction. Also, timing was very important because with so three row of rowers on each side, they could very easily hit another oar and slow down the boat.

The world-well known Henley Royal Regatta has been held every year for over a hundred years and draws a great many observers who come to appreciate more than 200 races. The Regatta focuses on the groups of boaters that fill the Thames to go after recompenses and boasting rights, and the occasion has kept up its custom of having just two pontoons dashing in every warmth. Onlookers can see the races from various diverse areas, each with its own particular feel. Watch out for acclaimed rowers and Olympians as they frequently take to the waters and give a significant appear.