2008-09 Crew Blog - Week 7

by Elissa Center - October 30, 2008

This weekend marked the official end of our fall crew season. Sad as that is, I can’t think of a better way to finish it off. Luckily, the weather in Philly forgot that it was Seven Sisters weekend and accidentally cooperated with us! It was beautiful, actually. After a stormy Saturday, the Schuylkill River was flat, the sky was sunny, and spirits were high, as we entered into what turned out to be a great day of racing.

In my boat, we talked a lot about shifting the focus from beating other boats to having our own personal best row. When I thought about it, that made perfect sense; I was fully confident that we could race our best and fully confident that our personal best would be wonderful. We came off the water smiling - the results wouldn’t be announced until the award ceremony, but we were proud of how we rowed. As our other boats returned to shore, I could see the same sort of excitement on their faces. At that point, I knew that it had definitely been a good morning, regardless of the results.

All of the Seven Sisters teams gathered around noon for lunch, a tradition after the race every year. Instead of staying segregated before the awards are announced, everyone is encouraged to intermingle and celebrate the spirit of the Seven Sisters event by getting to know rowers from the other schools. It was nice to talk to a girl from Wellesley that I’d rowed with this past summer and get to know a few of her teammates a little bit. I love the fact that we have that chance to talk to our competitors and realize that there is really so much more that we have in common than that separates us.

After a nice lunch (that I wasn’t actually very hungry for after snacking on delicious brownies post-racing!), it was time to move on to the awards ceremony. The results proved to be icing on the cake of a good day. I have to admit that I teared up a little bit when I heard that we had won; after three years of hard work, the whole thing had come full circle, and I had the chance to hear them announce Mount Holyoke as the Seven Sisters champions again. As a novice, it had been exciting, but experiencing it as a senior gave me a completely new perspective on everything that went into it. Winning both the first varsity eight and the overall team points meant that we would get to throw our coxswain, Biz, in the river - and (apparently) our coach, as well! What a great way to end the day and the season.