Jan. 29, 2007

Throughout the season, members of the UNC rowing team will provide TarHeelBlue.com readers with an inside look at the Carolina program and the experience of being a varsity athlete at UNC. This installment, the 11th of the 2006-07 school year, is by Laura Rock, a senior from Cary, N.C.

Trust

As mentioned before, every morning before practice Coach Haney reads about a trait included in the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. It is very effective and it helps us focus on different attributes that help accomplish our goals. Well this week, it came to my attention that one such trait had not been talked about. Trust. It is a word, a virtue I have used a number of times, but never really appreciated the meaning of. Merriam-Webster defines trust as the "assured reliance on the character, ability, or truth of someone or something". My parents would define it as me coming home on time for curfew. Regardless of what definition used, I think it worthy enough to be mentioned in this week's Rowing Along.

My reflection on the word `trust' all started in my Thursday's Group Dynamic class. My professor asked the class to give her an example of when we trusted someone. I find the activity surprisingly difficult. Who did I trust? What would that even consist of? Well, as the class progressed, the professor gave helpful cues as to what the answers to these questions were.

Trust. Trust is the blind and unwavering faith in the other people in your group to be there for you. It is relying on these same people to be dependable, responsible, and honest. As we continued to define trust, it dawned on me who these people were. They were the twenty or so other girls that fought beside me on our erg pieces; the voices that pushed me to put on more weight as we benched; and the synchronized bodies that moved in front of me in our boat. I realized that the people I essentially trusted were my teammates.

This is not an easy feat to accomplish - trusting others, especially in rowing. In such a team-oriented sport, it takes every person's dedication and hard work to have success, and only one person's mistake to have a failure. In spite of this fact, my team does trust one another. As we ran Kenan Stadium this week, we trusted each other to give the workout our all. Then, as our bodies began to fatigue and we began to struggle, our trust in each other never faltered. We were there for one another with words of encouragement, thumbs up and high fives. It is the trust I saw in practices like Kenan Stadium this week that will help our team win our spring races.

Picture eight girls lined up in a boat, one right behind the other, in a tiny scull rowing completely blind as to what is behind them. These eight girls are racing into the unknown completely unaware of how much water each person in the boat is pulling - or even that the people sitting behind them are pulling. This scull would go absolutely nowhere without trust in one another. Alas, along with our oar, it is the only thing we are armed with heading down the race course. This weapon is far more valuable than any other. It was built every time we wet docked in cold Lake Lanier water, every time we threw up in the disgusting erg room trash can, or rolled out of bed for our 5:30 a.m. practices. It is for these reasons that I know that in our darkest points of a race, my teammates will not give up, and it is why they know I will never let them down. This is why I have a newfound respect for the word `trust'. It is an amazing five-letter word that essentially makes us invincible, or makes us the `goddesses' our assistant coach Carrie Komar describes. As eight completely interdependent goddesses, none of us can make it to the finish line on our own; never mind trying to beat other schools. Thus, when spring comes, if boats begin to walk down our stern, we will do what we do best - trust in each other, work together, and fight like hell to win.