Why I decided to quit rowing

Rowing is one of the most misunderstood and unappreciated sports in the world. It’s a sport that requires total selflessness from each member of a crew. You give the entirety of your body and mind in order for you and your boat mates to move as one and to succeed.

What no one told me about rowing in college was that I could give every fiber of my being to my team and the sport I love and still find myself feeling completely and utterly worthless.

When I began my rowing career my freshman year of high school, I never would have imagined that I would row at Ohio State. I knew that I wanted to row in college, but Ohio State was a school and team I kept on the back burner. When I got my acceptance letter in the mail and a congratulatory email from the coach, I was thrilled, but also incredibly aware of the fact that I would have to work harder than I ever had before. I feigned my excitement and let my friends and family be excited for me.

Me and my friend on signing day

I knew that if I wanted to row at Ohio State and if I wanted to be successful, I would have to push my limits. My coach made that clear right from the get-go of the recruiting process. When practice began in the fall, I was logging more meters and running more miles than I ever had before. But I loved it. I loved feeling stronger and learning how to row like a Buckeye along with my teammates. We pushed each other to be the best athletes we could because we knew what was at stake: a third consecutive Big Ten Championship title.

I knew that if we wanted to be Big Ten Champions, we would have to make sacrifices, whether it was refraining from going out on the weekends or spending more time away from family. It wasn’t until winter rolled around that I began to see just how much sacrifice was really required.

When the cold weather forced us to go south to continue our training over winter break, we packed our bags and left Columbus on New Year’s Day in search of warmer weather. On the bus ride down, I began thinking about all the things I was missing back home. I missed out on spending New Year’s with my friends, many of whom I had barely seen over break. I was missing getting together with my family to celebrate the new year and my birthday. At the time, I thought of these missed experiences as drops in the bucket.

O-H-I-O at winter training

But little by little, these drops kept adding up as the rowing season and school year progressed. I was unable to join a cancer awareness club, a cause near and dear to my heart, because meetings and group service projects conflicted with practices and races. I was unable to pursue a minor in design because classes were only offered at the same time as my practices. I missed birthdays, holidays, and chances to try new things, but I kept telling myself it would be worth it when I had a Big Ten medal around my neck.

About two months before Big Tens, I had to miss practice to take an exam. My coach understood – it was something that neither of us could control. When I returned to practice the next day, I found that my seat in a boat had been taken from underneath me. In my absence, the boat I was previously in had dramatically improved. Since the only change had been me being replaced by someone else, I was ruled out as the weak link.

I understood that no one was safe in their seat, but I knew that I had a fighting chance to maintain a spot in a boat.

Practicing at Griggs Reservoir

So I fought. I tried to row harder and force myself to embrace technical changes to my stroke as I was leap frogged in and out of the boat for the next two months. I was exhausted. Every day I asked myself if I was good enough to be in a boat or if I would get tossed out to do a workout on land. I talked with my coaches about how I could get better and every day it was something different: your legs are too slow, you lean back too far, your hands aren’t high enough, you don’t have enough reach. It seemed that no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I wasn’t getting any better. I felt like wasted space. Still, I pushed through the blisters, sweat and tears because I kept telling myself that it would we worth it when we won, even though I wasn’t too sure of that anymore.

My pre-race jitters at the Big Ten Championships were different from what I had felt before. I still felt that familiar tightness in my chest that came before any race, but this time around I wasn’t shaking with nervousness or trying to control my breathing. As I sat with my boat mates at the start line, there was no internal pep talk, no prayer being sent up to the heavens. After clawing tooth and nail for a seat in a boat, I knew that hoping and praying wasn’t going to get us across the finish line. I was dialed in and focused. I was ready for it all to be over before it even started.

We crossed the finish line three boat lengths ahead of the pack. In a sport where the winner is sometimes decided by a fraction of a millisecond, this gap was humongous. I was overjoyed that I had achieved what I had set out to do, thanks to the help of my crew. I loved seeing my teammates so happy after so many long months of training.

After I returned home for the summer, the excitement of a Big Ten Championship faded and instead I was filled with dread. I tried diving back into my workouts to stay motivated, but I found myself hating every second of it more than usual. Instead of feeling strong and energized, I felt weak and exhausted. At that point, I wasn’t training because I wanted to. I was training because I felt I was expected to. The spark and desire to prove myself weren’t there anymore.

I heavily weighed the pros and cons and talked with my dad and high school coach before coming to the conclusion that I didn’t want to row anymore. I was terrified of letting go of the sport that had defined my life for the past five years, but at the same time I felt so trapped. I realized that if I was thinking about quitting so much, then the obvious choice was to walk away. I had to prioritize what I felt was right for me and not worry about what other people thought.

When I called my coach to tell him I was quitting, I was surprised by how sympathetic he seemed. I hung up the phone, still shaking, and started crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so happy.

I would never discourage anyone from rowing or playing any sport in college. If it’s something you love and you want to keep competing after high school, then go for it. Just make sure you compete because you want to, not because you feel like you have to. It takes a very unique and driven person to be a collegiate athlete, and I found that I am not one of those people. And I’m okay with that.