Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Rowing Journal - Jillian O'Mara
4/22/2010 8:00:00 AM | Women's Rowing
April 22, 2010
About two months into my first year at Bucknell I received an e-mail from Coach Dan asking me if I would like to write a journal entry for the website. I had no idea what to write, but I figured it would make sense to write of my adjustment to Bucknell, rowing in singles and some of the surprises of my freshman year. As I look back on that journal entry, I am astonished to realize that I wrote it all before I had experienced a spring season on the Bucknell Women's Rowing team. I didn't know what it was like to travel every weekend, or to race for a college, or to feel the Bucknell spirit that radiates at every regatta. I remember one day last year, it was one of the first times we did a really intense workout in an eight, and the coxswain called, "Let's go Bucknell." It seems so small and insignificant as I write it now, but I was shocked the first time I heard it. It was so strange to hear the name of a college come out of my coxswain's mouth, so bizarre to realize that not only was she cheering for Bucknell, but that I was a part of it. From that moment on there hasn't been any time to look back, from that moment on it hasn't been strange to call myself a Bucknellian and from that moment on a small spark of fire lights inside of me whenever I hear, "Let's go Bucknell."
This racing season has had its ups and downs, they all do. There are always the races in which you are edged out by another boat and there are always the races on which you would like to improve. But as we head into a weekend of intense racing, there is nothing more gratifying than knowing that you are about to experience seven minutes with some of your closest friends doing something that only the nine of you truly understand and ever experience. Every race, every practice, every failure, every hardship and every triumph blend together to create one experience. In this experience nine girls must learn to move as one, to propel themselves as fast as possible, to waste their bodies as much as possible and to do it all in complete unison. Nine girls must rely so heavily on one another that they forget about themselves, that they ignore the pain they feel, that they relinquish themselves to the movement and the flow of the boat and most of all that they find a new place together. This is the experience of being on the Bucknell Women's Rowing team and it makes me proud to be a Bucknellian.
- Jillian O'Mara '12
