Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Rowing Journal - Elizabeth Barnett
4/1/2008 8:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
April 1, 2008
"We have alignment, 5...4...3...2...1 ATTENTION ROW!!" are words that I have become accustomed to over the four years of my high school rowing career. I have rowed this same 2,000-meter course on the beautiful Schuylkill River so many times before that I know every landmark and turn by heart. But this time, as I as launched from the all too familiar Canoe Club it was different. For the first time in my life I was rowing with eight other women in the same boat; my teammates. No longer was I racing this course in my single shell.
As we took our first stroke at the Murphy Cup, it finally hit me, here I was a part of a unit of nine women, each of us fully dependent on the other, pulling, pushing, working, striving, together towards the same goal. Each of us, a single flame that ignites each other to start a fire of intensity, focus, drive, and camaraderie. I would not trade this feeling for anything in the entire world. Each stroke that was taken was for "our" unit; for each other. For me this meant that I was no longer pulling solely for myself in a single, but for the eight other women in the boat with me.
Here we were, nine ambitious women, putting it all out there for seven minutes, taking advantage of this opportunity to gain experience and grow as a boat. It was the first time we were at the starting line with five other boats, including Patriot League competitor Navy. But we were inside our "tube;" the other boats where invisible to us. We were here to take the opportunity to race a 2K together and stick to our race plan. The previous weekend we got on the line three times, each time improving upon our previous time, and, at the Murphy Cup, we continued that tradition: improving upon our time from our heat to final.
The Murphy Cup proved to us that our boat, as well as the entire team, as a whole, is filled with unstoppable potential and speed; the successes of each boat, inspiring and pushing the next boat to go faster. The fire has just barely been lit, and week after week, opportunity after opportunity, experience after experience, it will continue to grow and propel the entire team forward.
- Elizabeth Barnett '11
