San Diego’s Emily Carey – Rowing stories, features and interviews

This week’s row2k interview is with San Diego junior Emily Carey. We talk to Kerry about going with Torero, working in Hawaii during Covid and more.

row2k – You started rowing as a beginner in San Diego, what was your sporting background before you signed up?

Emily Carey – I was always an insanely active kid involved in a variety of activities, but I never really specialized in one sport until college. My earliest memories are of my neighborhood pool where I grew up swimming every summer. The fall season was reserved for cross country, while basketball dominated my winter and track filled the spring. In addition to my formal competitive athletic involvement, my upbringing in the Pacific Northwest fostered a love of outdoor adventure sports such as climbing, skiing, backpacking, and mountaineering. As you can tell, I’ve always strongly identified as an athlete, but I’ve remained well-rounded and multi-sport-able far longer than any of my specialist athlete peers.

row2k – How did you find your way into rowing?

Emily Carey – I found my way to the rowing team because of a desire to explore my physical limits and find a community that shared my values. Also, a conveniently placed flyer in my freshman dorm planted the seed in my head to try out the sport.

Having never specialized in one sport before college, I was left to wonder what could be possible if I sought to peak in a focused physical discipline. I wanted to test my limits and discover the extent of my abilities. Rowing presented itself as a perfect tool to reveal these possibilities.

I also craved a network of like-minded female athletes at my college. I struggled with the superficial appearance-based culture I felt in Southern California and wanted to find a niche community here that was more in line with my values. Our three core values ​​at USD Women’s Team are inclusion, effort and trust. I find these three elements fundamental to the health and success not only of my team, but in my personal life as well. The USD rowing team reiterated the values ​​I already had personally and provided me with a setting that encouraged me to live by those values ​​every day.

row2k – How did you handle the 2020 season with all the cancellations due to COVID?

Emily Carey – To be honest, my new year was incredibly difficult even before covid put an end to everything. I felt like an unwanted nuisance among the experienced recruit rowers. But I felt suffocated and unable to reach my full potential among rides that had varying levels of commitment to the sport. Besides me, only a handful of followers from my first year remain on the team today. I also almost quit a few times to pursue my goals in another way because I wasn’t sure I would ever be fully accepted in this rowing world. I desperately wanted the team to understand my dedication and potential, but proving yourself takes time, especially in a sport like this. Yet I knew it was possible with hard work. This valuable lesson turned my freshman year into a critical period of growth even before the pandemic hit.

In my first spring race, the Crew Classic, I took my rookie 8 through an admittedly messy but extremely rewarding 2k course. I was extremely proud of my boat for how far we had come since our first day on the water swinging oars and flipping boats just a few months earlier. If we could get this far in such a short amount of time, where could we go with each passing week of experience over the rest of the spring season? I wanted more chances to compete with these teammates and show everyone what we can do! It was in the midst of this long-awaited surge of hope and excitement after a fall plagued by doubt and discontent that we got the news that covid was forcing the NCAA to cancel all subsequent competitions this spring.

I want to mention here that I was extremely fortunate to only be a freshman, and a walk-on at that time. While the seniors were robbed of their peak season in their long rowing careers, I knew I would have more chances to compete ahead of me. I was also able to harness the subsequent disruptions of Covid to my advantage in ways that radically changed my physical confidence and my psychological approach to rowing.

row2k – What alternate route did you take during the COVID affected seasons?

Emily Carey – When I realized in the summer of 2020 that fall classes would be completely remote and rowing opportunities were uncertain, I decided to take two semesters off from USD. I wanted to find a (safe) way to continue learning, exploring, and growing in the midst of this pandemic that was leaving everyone around me suffocated and stagnant. So I coordinated with organic farms on the Big Island of Hawaii through a work exchange network called WWOOF to live, study and work with local farmers there. In all my free time, I went on volcano summit adventures, jungle treks, outrigger canoe trips, and open water ocean swims. Through it all, especially the many solo endeavors, I found a new sense of strength and confidence in my own ability to achieve physical feats. I heard over and over that what I was doing was too dangerous, that a woman shouldn’t be walking alone, or that a young girl like me just couldn’t do it.

There, there, I can actually do anything. As fatigue began to gather in my shoulders, when I was half a mile from the nearest shore at Kealekekua Bay, I acknowledged the feeling without panic, and knew that I could use mental willpower to keep my muscles moving in spite of all external physical sensation. The same goes for erg. This moment reminded me how strong and resilient we all can be. The self-doubt I had struggled with in sports prior to that moment was suddenly gone. I knew what I was capable of and I wasn’t afraid to push the edge of my abilities. In fact, after those empowering experiences in Hawaii, I was increasingly curious about where that advantage might lie. Returning to rowing was the perfect opportunity to channel that energy and test my limits.

row2k – What do you like most about the sport of rowing?

Emily Carey – The three aspects of rowing that I love most are the mental challenge, the community, and the setting. Rowing, like swimming and distance running, is a pain-based sport where the challenge is not to win a game, but instead to outlast and outlast your opponent through sheer effort and competitive courage. It’s a battle of mind over matter and I crave that mental challenge. Because of this nature of the sport, it attracts similarly motivated (or perhaps masochistic) individuals who are familiar with and comfortable with enduring the cries of the body’s physical pain. This translates into tough, ambitious and highly capable individuals that I respect the most. These individual characteristics, combined with rowing’s requirement for interdependence, create a uniquely hardworking and well-connected community. Finally, the incredible conditions in which we can practice this sport are unparalleled. We connect with the water and the natural world in ways that few other athletes can. Seeing the sun rise over our boats in San Diego’s Mission Bay reminds me every morning how lucky I am to be a paddler.

row2k – What are your spring goals for you and the team?

Emily Carey – Of course, the ultimate goal is to win our West Coast Conference and compete in the NCAA this spring, but we are more focused on the intermediate goals of the process that will get us there. Central to everything we do is to continue to cultivate these three team values ​​of inclusion, effort and trust.

We cannot collectively reach our greatest potential unless we break down the exclusionary barriers to entry into this sport. As a layman, I know first hand how many talented athletes walk away from the sport or have never even been exposed to it at all. Conscientious inclusion is particularly important in light of rowing’s classist, racist and sexist roots. USD is a place where we want to change the exceptional reputation of this sport. Anyone willing to put in the effort deserves a fair chance. I want to finish every erg test, every tough piece in the water, and every race knowing that I and the rest of my team have truly emptied the tank completely. When we all see each other making these efforts, it creates a cycle of inspiration and motivation throughout the team. That’s the momentum we’re looking for. And there we develop and prove our trust in each other. This is how inclusiveness, effort and trust will allow us to become the fastest and best version of USD Women’s Team that we can be.

row2k – What are you studying at USD and do you have plans for after graduation?

Emily Carey – Since I have enough seasons of eligibility to row until the spring of 2025, I plan to graduate then with a BA and MA in International Relations, as well as a Spanish degree. I intend to join the PeaceCorps after graduation, but my dream is to eventually become a foreign correspondent writing for a news company or to enter the foreign service in embassies around the world. Regardless of my profession, I will be an athlete all my life. I hope to spread my love of movement, teamwork and hard work (which rowing has fostered!) wherever my life may take me. With all that said, I remain open to all possibilities and look forward to seeing how my current plan develops, including in response to my continued development as a rower!