BTS BOWL WRITING PLAYOFF

Teamwork Made the Dream Work

One triumphant season with the SDSU Aztec rowing team

Fastest in the land — the SDSU Aztec rowing team, with our gold medals. That’s me in the back row, with the backward hat (Credit: Todd Castor)

I had just turned 18, and it had been less than a month since I’d left my hometown of Oxnard, California to attend San Diego State University, 200 miles to the south.

During those first several weeks, I became familiar with the SDSU campus, made some new friends, attended classes, and began to figure out how to take care of myself, far from the parental support system.

And then, on a sunny afternoon in September, I found myself in San Diego’s Mission Bay, my seat sliding back and forth in what’s called a training barge, with the handle of a sweep oar in my hands.

How did I get there?

I’d joined the university’s rowing program and was on the water for the very first time, learning the basics.

According to , the sport of rowing may have originated in England as early as the 18th Century. The first boat race between Oxford and Cambridge was held in 1828, and rowing became an Olympic sport in 1896.

Rowing can be brutally hard at top speeds. Olympic-distance races are 2,000 meters in length and tax nearly every major muscle group in the body.