Visiting Lecturer of Biology Angie Pytel sat down with one of her advisees.
“What are you interested in doing activity-wise?” she asked.
“Row,” sophomore Jessica Youngstrom answered without hesitation.
Pytel said she could tell Youngstrom was passionate about rowing.
“I said to her, ‘Do you know it’s winter most of the time in Michigan?’” Pytel said, laughing.
But Youngstrom was insistent on getting a rowing team on the Hillsdale College campus.
“I rowed in high school, and this was the only school I looked at that didn’t have rowing,” she said. “I was really giving something up coming here.”
Though the rowing team is not an official club sport on campus, a group of both men and women are working towards club approval – Youngstrom is working with nine other girls interested in rowing, while sophomore Robert Ramsey works with four other men.
Youngstrom said even though they are not an official club, the still hold practices six times a week.
“Trying to coordinate schedules with 10 different people is a huge struggle,” Youngstrom said. “It’s a big commitment.”
The women lift weights twice a week and workout on the ergometer, or rowing machine, twice a week. They do other team activities such as play basketball or run on the other two days.
In the spring, the team will be able to practice on Baw Beese Lake with Youngstrom’s four-person sweeping boat.
“We’re still working on team bonding,” Youngstrom said. “Most of us are from athletic backgrounds, so we’re just trying to workout different muscles and become friends.”
The men’s and women’s teams work out separately right now. Ramsey said the men are in the weight room three times a week.
Though Ramsey said he has never rowed competitively, two of the men on the team have. Sophomore Tyler Herndon, a transfer from Oglethorpe University, studied abroad at Oxford University last semester and rowed on the team there.
“It’s a huge deal over there,” he said. “It felt like something I should do while I was at Oxford.”
Herndon said his crew ended up getting to the finals of the novice regatta at the end of the semester. Although Herndon had never competed on a rowing team before, he said it was something he really enjoyed and something he would continue to enjoy at Hillsdale.
Ramsey said he also looks forward to adding the club team on campus.
“I just thought it would be a fun sport,” he said. “I love boats. I love sailing. I thought it would go really well with the Hillsdale atmosphere.”
Rowing was a part of the Hillsdale atmosphere in the late 1800s. In fact, the rowing team was one of the first nationally recognized teams to come out of the Hillsdale area.
Four men, all Hillsdale College graduates, taught themselves to row on Baw Beese Lake and in 1879 won the National American Amateur Rowing Championships. They went on to win again in 1880 and 1881.
The colors the rowing team wore, royal blue and white, were adopted as the college’s colors, which were an aquamarine blue at the time.
Ramsey and Youngstrom said they had been tossing around the idea of starting a team since last year and finally did this semester. Along with paperwork and by-laws, the students needs an academic advisor to begin competing as a club team.
Youngstrom asked Pytel to help out, even though she has no background in rowing.
“I’ve canoed. I’ve kayaked. I would row my husband around Rockwell Lake,” Pytel said, laughing. “I’ve played a lot of sports, and I’m into exercise for sure.”
Though Pytel said she had some scheduling conflicts and cannot commit to be the team’s advisor, she said she is excited that Youngstrom is pursuing her interest in rowing.
Right now, Youngstrom said she is content to build a core group and continue practicing.
“When spring comes, we can get out on the water,” she said.
