Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Rowing Journal - Sabine Sellers
1/28/2016 9:58:00 AM | Women's Rowing
A Story From an Almost Quitter
I am coming back from being abroad. I am coming back from being injured. I am coming back to the team. While the first two statements are facts I have known for months, the last phrase was a sentence I could end with a period or question mark on any given day. When I finished the spring season in May last year, I left Bucknell with a mindset that I would be back on the team without a doubt, but as the summer progressed, and then eventually after I went abroad, the period at the end of that sentence started to waiver.
I have rowed competitively since I was 13 years old. I started in eighth grade and have since rowed 5-6 days a week through the school year, with the only exception being caused by injury. In the summer, I cycle, do a bit of sculling, or do other cross training to keep my fitness up, but in the back of my mind, I am always thinking about staying in shape for the next season. Being abroad was the first time that I broke this mentality. I still exercised and stayed active, but instead of training like a Division I athlete, I worked out like a “normal” person. I wanted to dive head first into every opportunity that I could while I was in this different culture, and sometimes I did not have multiple hours to block out for a workout. As the semester progressed, I started to see what my life could be like without rowing, and to be honest, I liked it. After so many years of having to say “I'm sorry, I can't. I have practice,” it was refreshing to be able to spend time with friends, or stay up late, or plan trips on the weekend. I felt a freedom that I had never really experienced before, and it was enticing, even liberating. I relished it. I did not want to give it up.
Fast forward, and on December 18, I flew home to the United States, and I was truly faced with a decision. I had already confirmed that I would attend the team training trip in Georgia at the end of the winter holiday, but I had not yet decided if I would continue from there. I told myself that I would use the camp to see if I was still in love with the sport, if I enjoyed the new team dynamic, and if my body could handle Division I training. While this is what I told people and wanted to believe, in the back of my mind, I had already checked out. I had seen a senior come back for camp and then quit my freshman year, so I rationalized that a precedent had already been made. When I spoke, anything that I said about rowing or about the future semester was capped with “…if I am still with the team.” I realize now that I had even started picking up that phrase and the question mark as early as October.
On the morning I left to return to Bucknell, I was talking to my mother and the reproachful phrase popped into the conversation and she paused — she was about to give me a “man up” or “get yourself back into gear” comment. And she did. In fewer and more polite words, she told me that I needed to make a decision because I could not sustain this yes/no mentality. I simply responded, “I will see how it goes.”
As soon as I started to see my teammates, I knew that I wanted to spend 30-plus hours a week with them the way I would if I was a member of the team. But even with this push to stay, my hesitation was still firmly in place. On our first row in Georgia, I naively expected a magical moment like you see in the movies where a girl returns to something she loves and all of her doubts miraculously vanish — this was not the case for me. I almost felt blasé to taking strokes and where one minute I would be saying how happy I was to be at Lake Russell, the next I was wondering if I was a waste of space.
A few days into the trip, though, we had our class meetings and something clicked. I'm not sure how, when, or why, but in that meeting, it struck me, that even though the Class of 2017 is small, we still have so much we can give to the team. Each of us brings a different element, experience, or outlook to the group and realizing that I have the honor and privilege of working with these women, and others, brought back vivacity that had been missing for months.
Camp continued, the rust fell away with each stroke, and so too did much of my angst. The rows became crisper, cleaner, faster, and more technically sound, and each row started to feel like a gift rather than a burden or obligation. On the last day, when we finally did some race pieces, I finished the final piece beaming. Yes, I was out of breath, yes, I wanted a vacuum to suck the lactic acid from my legs, but no, I was not in pain from injury. I had not been able to row full pressure pain free since January, and I had forgotten what it felt like to put the blade in the water restriction free. That race piece gave me more confidence than I ever could have imagined; that was my “Hollywood” moment. I felt secure with my teammates and in control of my body. And yet, as delighted as I was as we derigged, as we sat on the bus on the way home, uncertainty began clawing its way back into my thoughts and again I started to waiver.
The next two days were filled with more self-reflection and going through the motions. I kept thinking if I could find my old rhythm back on campus everything would get better, so on Tuesday I willed myself to the training room, did some maintenance work, and eventually made my way to the front row of the erg room. A minute into my piece, Maya walked through the door, but we both went about our business. She chose the next free erg in the front row and at first we kept to our own rhythms, each going about her own business.
We both got up after a few minutes, stretched, and eventually got back to being on the ergs at the same time. Slowly we started to fall into sync together and as we did, an energy that I wish I could explain started to fill the room (Maya, when we talked later, used the word magical to describe it). We took stroke after stroke in unison with music blaring at a level that would normally make simple thought impossible, but a single idea refused to leave my head. “I want to pull with her.”
I remembered sitting behind Maya in the V8 my freshman year, listening to her tell her story to the team my sophomore year, and, there in my junior year, I watched her as she worked to fulfill her dream of being on the team all four years. Peaking glances over at her, I saw the beauty in her stroke, the determination in her sweat, and the leadership in her poise. I do not know why or how, but finally, after months of debate and uncertainty, in that moment, I knew how I wanted to shape the semester. I am coming back to the team. Period.
- Sabine Sellers '17
Players Mentioned
