By Emma G. Harrison
“You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart… And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway.”
-George Yeoman Pocock
On March 29, at the Hamilton Creek Marina in Nashville during the Annual Percy Priest Sprints competition, I had the honor of capturing my best friend doing this thing she loves most: rowing. Lauren Jones and I have been a part of TriStar Rowing Club for four and five years, respectively.
Having grown exponentially since its debut in 2019, TriStar has built a community that Jones and I are proud to be a small part of. We have been pretty much inseparable since we started rowing, and now we are facing our senior year in high school together (Jones at Maryville High School and me, a fully dual-enrolled homeschool student at Pellissippi State Community College).
Jones has plans to attend West Virginia University this fall to study Environmental Science and to continue rowing on the West Virginia Division 1 rowing team. Her whole TriStar Rowing family, including me, couldn’t be more proud of her.
The sport of rowing is very different from any other sport. There are obvious differences: we don’t use a ball (unless you count our bow ball) and we race backwards, facing the opposite direction from the finish line. But, there is a deeper physical uniqueness that makes rowing stand out from an athletic perspective.
Each stroke we take challenges our minds to compete and fight back against the pain of pushing off with our legs. Every stroke we repeat the process while fighting the burning we feel in our legs and lungs. We do this process over and over until we have dreams about the rhythmic back and forth motion we spend well over 12 hours each week attempting to perfect.
Competitive rowing is beautiful and challenging. I am so honored to be able to share my love for this sport with the students and faculty at Pellissippi State.
