|
Bucknell Women's Rowing Journal - Alexandra Higbee
May 26, 2009
Project (n)- The speech given to the whole team the night before the Murphy Cup addressed the current lightweight eight as a “project”. My first impression of the speech was honestly, excitement. All I could think was, YES let’s take this and go FAST. I was excited to be called a project, which upon later conversations I learned some people didn’t get the same idea from that word. To be part of this project turned out to be the biggest learning experience I had on this team. It was challenging to try and spread the feeling of excitement for being called a project but we definitely achieved it, learning through each of our races and conversations as a team. The lightweight boat ultimately had a variable season, some races we were ON and other ones we had a few hiccups. The ultimate test of our resiliency as a boat was our post season race at the Dad Vail. All nine of us had looked at this race as an opportunity to prove to everyone that this was a serious project. Coming from finals week, fresh out of the spring racing season, everyone was certainly working under the maximum load and we knew we would have to be ON to win this race. So when we left that Thursday evening in our omnibus with Coach Dan, we were pumped. Interestingly enough, given our excitement and energy to race, we ended up coming in third in the qualifiers due to a poor head race. This discouraged us for only moments when we realized the next day that we would get a change to show everyone our real stuff in a head to head, six boats across, race. As the day winded down, we got a few stories from Coach Dan about his four finals at the Dad Vail and three gold medals to bolster our spirits for the next day and really bring it all home. To our excitement the next day, we saw on the official schedule that we were in lane two and realized despite wind and the previous heat race, we were going to do this. Our project presentation was on May 9 and we were going to do it well. We warmed up smoothly, coming up to the line we fist bumped and knew we were ready. Then the official announces, “Bucknell, Lane 5.” Oh no. No, no, no. Coach Dan rowed in lane 2 and we were going to. After polite reasoning with the official it was decided we were in lane 5, we backed into it, got pointed and we, were, OFF. Our start had always been strong, something that signifies how bad we want this and we went off that line like we were back in Ohio with Wisconsin. It was epic, to say the least. We pulled away from the field quickly, losing California around the 1,000-meter mark, and never looking back once.
After we finished that race we knew we had finished our project, we worked hard for it and we left it all out on that course. We like to think we got an A on that project, but one thing is for sure, we made it work. - Alexandra Higbee '12 |
MULTIMEDIA 
Slide Shows 
Facilities Gallery 
Video Player 
Media Guide |
