Becoming a Buckeye Varsity Athlete – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/20/2008 12:00:00 AM | Rowing
Finding a new athletic challenge in rowing at Ohio State
COLUMBUS, Ohio With such a large and diverse campus, there is something for everyone at Ohio State. Within the University’s prominent department of athletics, first and second-year students can find a niche of their own by joining the Ohio State rowing team as a novice rower. Each season, Bethia Woolf, Buckeye assistant rowing coach, scours the campus for prospective student-athletes to fill its novice team roster. The goal is to utilize the Buckeye program as an apprenticeship with the ultimate goal of developing beginner rowers into varsity student-athletes.
“The novice rowing program is an important part of the Ohio State rowing program,” Woolf said. “We recruit athletes from around the world and around the country, but the novice program is a big feeder for the program with some of our top varsity rowers coming up through it.”
For example, the First Varsity Four that helped the Buckeyes to a third-place team finish at the 2007 NCAA Championship was manned by four rowers who previously competed on the novice squad. Excelling in its first year of rowing, the quartet was promoted from the novice boat to the varsity crew and raced at a national championship in just their first year participating in the sport.
Upon joining the Buckeyes, novice rowers has access to all the tools necessary to help them succeed, including priority scheduling, tutoring services and training room privileges.
“The opportunity is out there for people who were high school athletes but not recruited for their original sport to be an athlete at a Division I university,” Woolf said. “There are former walk-ons on our squad who are now receiving substantial athletic scholarships they earned by doing well in the sport and making varsity boats.”
But just like any other varsity sport, making the Ohio State rowing team is difficult, but not impossible.
“It takes a person who wants to train hard and work hard,” Woolf said. “The novices train six days a week, conditioning, lifting and learning to row.
“We look for height because stroke length is important but it isn’t the only thing. General athleticism and flexibility help make a person more apt to becoming a better rower. Often times we have girls join who played other sports in high school because they generally are fitter and have that competitive nature already instilled in them.”
While most novice rowers played mainstream sports in high school like basketball and volleyball, it is not always the case. Buckeye senior Patricia Goodeman worked her way up from the novice program to the First Varsity Eight after riding horses in prep school.
“It’s a huge leap of faith for them,” Woolf said. “Considering the time commitment involved right from the start. In the novice program, we take a group of beginners and seven months later they are racing at a Big Ten championship and their performance impacts the whole team. They can help the team win points toward the conference trophy.”
This summer, Woolf and the team will be canvassing campus looking for interested first and second-year students at freshman orientation, Welcome Week and the annual involvement fair. All interested parties should contact Woolf at woolfb@buckeyes.ath.ohio-state.edu for more information.
