Jenn Varallo '16 (Varsity Women)
Major: Biomedical Sciences
Hometown: Blackwood, NJ
I was your Type A go-getter in high school. I was a part of almost every club, sport, and group there was at the school, but I had a particular love for field hockey. Field hockey had been a part of my life since elementary school and I became increasingly better at the sport as I aged. By the end of my high school career, I was a three-time defensive award winner, two-time all-conference award recipient, and an All South Jersey team member. Being a 5’ 3” muscly square of a person, the sport of field hockey seemed to be my calling and I planned to play in college. Schools recruited me, I made official visits, and I set my sights on a small college in Virginia which had a starting position waiting for me. My future college plans were practically set in stone by the winter of my senior year.
As you can infer by the existence of this post, my future plans weren’t as ironclad as I thought they were. Life happened during the second semester of my senior year. In a strange change of events, my senior summer was spent sending apologetic emails to my would-be Virginian field hockey coach explaining I had received a better offer from Marquette and would not be attending her school. In early August, I found myself registering for any open classes I could take in the fall, Google mapping where Milwaukee was actually located, and intensively Facebook stalking my new Marquette roommate. All of my previous academic and athletic plans were scrapped, and in late August I boarded a plane headed for Wisconsin and Marquette University Freshmen Orientation without any future plans at all.
Freshmen orientation was packed with your expected assortment of icebreakers and mixers as well as organization fests which urged incoming freshmen to get involved in the groups at the school. I quickly found out that field hockey wasn’t as popular in the Midwest as it was on the coasts and that Marquette did not have a club team or even an intramural field hockey league. With my sport being next to nonexistent in Wisconsin, I decided to go to the first novice rowing practice with some girls on my floor. My dad rowed in high school and I thought I should give it a shot. No matter how crazy it sounds, even after a year of novice rowing and another year of waking up at the crack of dawn as a varsity rower to go out on the water or kill myself on an erg machine, I will never regret going to that first novice practice and joining MU Crew.
Rowing has morphed me into a better athlete than I could have ever imagined of becoming. I have participated in sports since I have been five years old, but I have never been in this good of physical shape. Rowing has also mentally trained me to challenge myself and overcome my physical limits. The sport keeps pushing you to greater heights and makes you achieve feats you thought were impossible to achieve. Plus, it’s the ultimate team sport. I have been on basketball teams, softball teams, swimming teams, gymnastic teams, and, of course, field hockey teams, but they have never felt as unified and as teammate dependent as the rowing team. A small assortment of athletes always seems to stand out in those other sports, but in rowing no one is a stand out, well, except when you’re rowing a single. Your boat is only as strong as your weakest rower. You feed off your teammates and you want to push yourself for them. Your teammates become the people you want to be better for both on and off the water. The MU Crew Team consists of people who inspire me and individuals I am proud to call my best friends. Rowing has made me a better, more confident person and I know I would not have loved my college experience as much as I have without the sport and my team.
Although I did not play my dream sport, I did not go to my first choice school, and I did not stay true to my set future plans, I am so happy I came to Marquette and found MU Crew. I know I would not have had such an amazing college experience without the sport. This team means more to me than any other team I have ever been on. And, blog reader, since you have read this, I hope you walk away from this post understanding you do not have to be a rower to row. You could be a Type-A field hockey player who makes last minute college decisions and goes to college without any future plans, join the rowing team, and have the time of your life. If you have the humility to be a team player, the determination to always strive for the best, and the desire to become a better person, rowing could definitely be the sport for you. I promise you will not regret trying it!
