More Rowing Along...

Lauren Agrella

The summer was anything but dull for members of the UNC women's rowing team. Lauren Agrella, who is working toward a double major in women's studies and international studies, spent six weeks visiting women's organizations in Ghana, West Africa, and traveling around the country, studying how the Ghanaian educational system prepares women for employment. Other teammates were scattered all over the globe, but in August they all returned to Chapel Hill, excited to begin the team's third season as a varsity program.

After spending the past three months scattered all over the world - England, West Africa, the West Coast, New England, South America - the Carolina women's rowing team has come back together on the Hill. We've spent the summer pursuing a wide range of interests: working for accounting firms, manning cruise ships in Alaska, researching, volunteering with the Special Olympics, taking summer classes, spending time with our families.

Members of the rowing team have been sharing their energy with the rest of the world but now we're all back in Chapel Hill, some 24 or so returning rowers and coxswains, ready to go! We're gearing up for another season of Carolina rowing, joined by a group of 40 new and enthusiastic athletes who make up the novice squad. The call-out meeting for novice try-outs ( which just concluded) found nearly 250 interested women crowding into an auditorium on campus to hear our coach, Joel Furtek, talk about our sport. Watching their eyes grow larger and seeing them scrunch their faces at video footage of last season, the synchronicity of an eight move through the middle of a spring sprint, is enough to get us all really ready to go. Witnessing the novices go through the team selection process was even more exciting. While we have an entirely new squad, we have even more fans on campus! Joel is joined by our two new additions to the Carolina Rowing coaching staff, Jason Coffman and Jody Wilhelm, and we're all eager to see what they'll bring to the program this fall.

If the summer has done anything beyond increase our list of places visited, its made us ready to refocus our energy on a sport we're so lucky to be able to do. Most other places in the country and the world (outside of isolated communities of rowers) few have more than heard of a crew. But for the majority of us, rowing is addictive. We miss the feel of being on the water, the pre-race anxiety, the constant pushing ourselves into new territories. Getting to continue the summer travel theme this year with trips to the West Coast and to Florida isn't too bad, either.

Every season both our fall and spring segments begins and ends with a testing battery on the ergometers, also known as rowing machines. Erg tests are usually accompanied by extreme butterflies and something akin to fear of the resulting numbers. Many of us tend to self-destruct in our testing anxiety. We make too many visits to the bathroom beforehand. We let the erg computers psych us out. But the mentality surrounding this fall's testing bodes well for what's to come. We're excited! We're ready to really have some fun! We're even, if I might use the word, relaxed. Several of our returning rowers set personal records in their tests, others simply had the kind of composed and focused demeanor it's easy to lose on the erg, and essential to have on the water. After two varsity seasons, we're finally figuring something out: We love to row, and we row best when we're having fun.

This week begins our first official on-the-water practices and full training schedule. We're gearing up for mornings in the weight room and runs out to the boathouse, getting home tired from practice and hitting the library straightaway. Our fall season takes us to Virginia and Georgia, but is primarily geared toward preparing us for the competitive spring, when the work we're doing now will really begin to yield results. My teammates tease me about my sentimentality and emphasis on "togetherness" -- but, really, how much more 'together' can a sport get than eight women moving inch-for-inch at the same time with their minds upon the same goal and their bodies in rhythm with the coxswain's voice? This season is something we're all going into together with a sense of purpose and enjoyment of each other and of our lives. James Michener is quoted as saying that "character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries." It is our third try and we can get there, if we go together.

Woo-hoo! Let's go!