My Experiences as a Collegiate Rower

I rowed in bow seat for Emory Crew.

Stephen Hawking was once a coxswain for Oxford College. Since he was super smart, he chose to be a coxswain instead of a rower.

I wasn’t so smart. I signed up for crew my sophomore year with no idea what I was getting into. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Enjoying mornings rowing on tranquil water? Check. Getting into the best shape of my life? Check. Joining an elite white man’s sport? Check. Looking back, I think there was some false advertising and selective omissions in the flyers.

And so there I was, sitting on a rowing ergometer, having never played a sport since dodgeball in elementary school (which I dominated, by the way.) I was flanked by guys who looked much tougher and fitter than me. Head Coach Bryce Carlson gave us a quick lesson to get us started. “Hang from the catch”, “drive with the legs”, “feel the connection.” The essence of the whole sport in three easy-to-remember quotes? I was starting to like this. I quickly changed my mind twenty minutes later when I couldn’t feel my legs and wobbled home like a drunk chicken.

The thing about nerds is that they get obsessive about their hobbies. Crew became one of mine. I was terrible when I first started; on the first fitness test I was slower than everybody, including girls on the women’s team who weighed half of what I did. Through hard work I ended up being almost as fast as my 6’2 “french explosion” buddy Jim, and consistently beat my other 6’2 “stereotypical tall skinny white lightweight” buddy Jared. our squad proceeded to do well at our competitions.

Racing at the Head of the Charles and rowing on the river that I used to frequent as a high school student was the highlight of my short career that was hampered by lower back problems.

So why did I row? I like to think that it was “to be the best that I can be”, or to prove that chubby asians could become good athletes, or that rowing makes a great allegory to life, or to finally become a jock (utterly failed at that.) The truth was that I was probably just addicted to the sport. I got my daily fix micro-tearing my muscles on the erg. The pain of rowing gives the mind a certain tranquility as all your worries, fears, doubts and insecurities are drowned by burning sensations radiating through all your limbs. The lingering high afterwards is well worth it. As all addicts know, your body acclimates to stimulation and you need more just to feel the same way, so I pulled harder and harder. Getting faster was just a byproduct.

Also, I now get to tell people that I woke up at 4 a.m. a couple times a week for two years, which is pretty cool.