Most Taylor Place residents would only be awake at 4:30 in the morning if they were still awake from the night before. But for a small group of ASU female athletes, this is when their alarm goes off signaling that it is time to wake up.
Cheyenne Lopez, a freshman at the Downtown campus majoring in social work, said that being a downtown rower poses some challenges, like having to wake up earlier than some of the team’s Tempe members.
“It’s not easy,” Lopez said. “You just have to be really dedicated and really want to do the sport.”
According to Lopez, the group of downtown rowers keeps one another accountable for going to practice.
“If you want to skip a practice, you’re not going to be able to with people knocking on your door,” Lopez said.
Lopez has been a member of the ASU women’s crew team since early last semester. She is one of three downtown rowers and three Tempe rowers who will be heading to Philadelphia on Thursday, May 6 for the Aberdeen Dad Vail, the nation’s largest collegiate regatta. Lopez will be joined by fellow downtown freshman Sarah Katz, a journalism major, and Natasha Edlefsen, who is majoring in criminology.
Edlefsen, who joined the team early in the spring semester, said one of the hardest things about being a downtown member of crew is feeling like an inconvenience.
“It’s hard when someone has to go out of their way to pick you up in the mornings, but in the end its totally worth it,” Edlefsen said. “The girls that are on the team right now and coach make (crew) a lot of fun to be a part of. I’m sure they like having us ‘downtowners.’”
Edledsen is accompanying the team to Philadelphia as one of two alternates. Lopez and Katz will be part of a four person boat lead by a member known as the coxswain, who leads the boat and keeps the rowers in unison. Lopez says the process of figuring out which four girls will row in Dad Vail was a rigorous one.
“(We) went through about five different line-ups. It was pretty tough, because I was part of the core ‘three’ that rowed throughout the various line-ups,” said Lopez. “Since we’ve decided who was going to Dad Vail, we’ve been working with the line-up we have now almost every day.”
Katz said that while she is excited about participating in Dad Vail, which will host more than 100 teams this year, she is also nervous to see how ASU will measure up against some of the strongest teams in the US.
“I’m excited to see the amount of teams that are there … this is going to be the largest regatta we’ve ever been too,” Katz said. “There are also going to be a lot of really strong teams there, so we’ll have to step it up and stay focused.”
Participants of Dad Vail, which is held on Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, do not have to meet any qualification or times in order to participate. This is one reason Katz and Lopez feel excited but slightly anxious about the competition they will meet in the city of brotherly love.
“It’s scary,” Lopez said about the size of the regatta, “but it’s going to be a great experience to see how our girls react to being on such a big stage with such competitive teams.”
Both Katz and Lopez are eager to see awareness about ASU’s crew grow on the Downtown campus. The two felt that participating in big-name regattas like Dad Vail could help give the team more recognition downtown.
“I hope that we get more people,” Lopez says. “It’d be nice to just to have a real presence … my dream is to see more people from the downtown as a part of our team.”
Contact the reporter at vmorrow@asu.edu
