By Shannon Walsh

Rowing for me has always been my place to escape, I was first introduced to the sport of rowing when I was a freshman in High School and I joined my school’s team as a novice. I quickly fell in love with it and my favorite part of the day was when I got to go out onto the river and row.

On my first day at the summer session of the para teen rowing program at CRI, I was very excited to see what was going to be thrown my way. I had been told I might be going out in a double, a two person sculling rowing boat, with one of the teen rowers or I might be helping out as a volunteer in other ways. I was trying to be prepared for anything, but my sculling practices have been severely lacking since the fall of 2020, when we were forced to scull due to COVID protocols.

Due to the smaller numbers we had on that early June afternoon we started by putting a few of the teen rowers into single sculls by themselves and had them strapped to a volunteer on the dock so that they wouldn’t go too far. I luckily on this day got to experience both the aspect of volunteering from the dock and watching the rowers go around in singles themselves and then also by getting into a boat with one rower and going out with her.

While I was volunteering on this first day I started by being paired up with Alan, who is a rower who has been participating in this program for almost three years now, and it showed. He was able to row with quite a bit of confidence and continuously almost pulled me into the river because I couldn’t pull back against him with the strap. Even though this was my first time at this program and I felt like I really didn’t know what I was doing or how I should do it. I learned very quickly that the best thing I could do to help was to just be extremely encouraging and supportive while trying to convey the few helpful tips that I had in terms of technique. Everyone within this program both the coaches and the athletes, were very kind and welcoming and helpful in terms of making sure that I knew where I needed to be and how I could be the most helpful.

When I moved into my second portion of the day where I was able to get into a boat with one of the para rowers it was a completely different experience with the program. I was able to witness the direct coaching that was available and go through some drills to help work on her technique. I warned her as we got into the boat and launched that she probably was going to be a way better sculler than I was, and I was not mistaken at all. I felt bad like I was holding her back at times due to me trying my best to keep up with her quick pace, but falling short occasionally.

This experience though was overall a great opportunity and a wonderful time, where I was able to look at a sport that has such a large part within my life and approach it from a different angle.