Row Row Row Your Boat

UPrep students compete on crew teams outside of school

Freshman+Mia+Predmore+rows+with+her+crew+team+from+Pocock+Rowing+Center+on+Lake+Union.+

Photo: Zoe Vais

Freshman Mia Predmore rows with her crew team from Pocock Rowing Center on Lake Union.

“It’s kind of hard to stop, I guess. It’s kind of like an addicting sport, I think, for a lot of people, including me,” said sophomore Jordan Dykema. 

Dykema is talking about the popular water sport crew, officially called rowing. Rowing involves a race between two or more teams where athletes sit in boats and use an oar to paddle backwards.

From volleyball to basketball to track, University Prep offers several extra curricular sports to students. But some students want to explore sports at places beyond UPrep.

“It’s kind of hard to stop, I guess. It’s kind of like an addicting sport, I think, for a lot of people, including me,” said sophomore Jordan Dykema.

Dykema is talking about the popular water sport crew, officially called rowing. Rowing involves a race between two or more teams where athletes sit in boats and use an oar to paddle backwards.

From volleyball to basketball to track, University Prep offers several extra curricular sports to students. But some students want to explore sports at places beyond UPrep.

Many UPrep students do crew outside of school since UPrep doesn’t offer it. Freshman Mia Predmore is new to the sport. 

“I really like being outside on the water everyday. It’s really relaxing,” Predmore said.

Not all athletes who do crew are rowers. Predmore enjoys being a coxswain, a position where you face the rowers and instruct them on where to go.

Junior Grace Paterson has been doing crew for three years as a coxswain. She doesn’t actually row, but describes the position as “carrying out the race plan” and “making sure what the coach wants to happen is getting done.” Paterson is the coxswain of a boys team. 

“You need to be able to not be intimidated… just trust in yourself that you know what you’re doing,” Paterson said.

The goal is to beat the other teams before they reach the 2,000 or 6,000 meter goal. Senior Joey Sniezeck finds the sport perfect for him because of his competitiveness and history with water sports

“I was born and raised in Hawaii, and there I grew up outrigger canoe paddling, which is a water sport,” Sniezeck said. “Then when I moved out here I wanted to find another sport that could connect me to the water.”

Dykema started doing crew in eighth grade and was inspired by personal connections to the sport. 

“My dad’s a rowing coach, and my mom rowed, and my step-mom rowed and my other stepmom rowed,” Dykema said. “And, she actually went to the Olympics for rowing, and she won three gold medals in the United States.”

Sophomore Shraeya Iyer, who also began rowing in eighth grade, was a swimmer for a while and decided to pursue crew instead.

“It’s a really intense sport and there’s a lot of on-the-water and off-the-water training,” Iyer said. 

For most of these students, practices are five days of the week or more, for multiple hours at a time. Some rowers even practice in the mornings during the spring.

If there’s one thing all of these rowers, experienced and new have in common, it’s the love of the sport. 

“More people should do it,” Sniezek said. “It’s a great sport.”