Women's Team Wednesday: Mackenzie Elliott

As you all read, Brian did his last Men's Team Monday on his best friend and roommate, Nick. Now many of you may not know this but fate handed me a gift my senior year of high school and I now go to college with my childhood best friend: Mackenzie Elliott. Mackenzie and I have been inseparable since we were nine years old and have stayed together since. Life has taken us on an interesting journey, with rowing being a large aspect of that and with that, it only made sense to make my favorite ginger my last Women's Team Wednesday.

Mackenzie Elliott

Freshman

Hometown: Manlius, NY 

Major: Early Childhood Education

Years Rowing: 5

Fun Fact: She thinks (make that knows) that she's a poet

Q: How did you start rowing?

A: Are all of these questions going to be rowing? Okay. How did I start rowing? Well I was kinda forced to. I didn't want to and wanted to have a lazy summer but my mom said no you're going to try rowing and I said nah, man I just want to chill. Two weeks later I was being dropped off for a learn-to -row camp. I ended up not sucking and thought rowing was fun and a good way to exercise and so that fall I quit cheerleading and decided to dedicate my full time to rowing.

Q: What do you like about rowing?

A: I feel like everyone always says that they do it for the team, and yes that's true but what rowing gives you that other sports never did is a long, drawn-out adrenaline rush. Cheerleading had routines that lasted 2.5 minutes and I used to think that was long and then came rowing. Seven minutes is a long time and that's in a boat. On my own it takes me 7:33 and being able to exert my body for that long showed me what being an athlete was. I'm not saying cheerleading isn't a sport but rowing opened my eyes to something on such a higher level of athletic performance. 

Q: Why the 'Hurst? Besides the fact that you couldn't stay away from me?

A: Oh you know that's obviously it. Well, I came in as a psych major so that was a big part since they have a great program. For rowing, I would say it was Jamie and Adrian that made me want to row here. Other schools didn't make me feel as welcomed and when I came here the coaches and teammates made me feel like I was already apart of the team. I don't know, it was like he kind of expected me to come and row and he already knew what I was thinking and that this was the right place for me in the back of his mind. And I mean, who can really let down Adrian?

Q: What advice to you have for incoming freshman rowers?

A: Don't expect to know who you are. When I came here I thought I knew what I wanted and what I wanted to strive for. That changed even in the first semester. You just feel lost - lost in rowing or lost in life, that's just apart of it all. You just have to accept that and continue to work hard at what you want to achieve and find something that drives you through the good and bad. Oh, and rowing is hard. 

"Oh no I'm going to fall out!" (Caption by Mackenzie) 

Q: You were injured in the middle of racing season and told you couldn't row - what was that like?

A: Can you just put it sucked? I think it's any rower's worst nightmare to be told you can't row. I had felt like I had finally started to prove myself. I was starting to show the coaches why I was here and started to believe in myself and believe that I could do it. And to then be told I can't seat race the next week and I can't even row? It was pretty awful. People thought I was dead, ya know? The entire team wondered where I was and that's my family. This was the first time all year I felt normal and rowers aren't normal. Adrian tells us everyday that what we do isn't normal and winning isn't normal and I had become used to that lifestyle. Having it taken away from me was hard, and admitting something was wrong was the hardest. I saw my injury as a weakness and although I'm fine now, I feel like I missed out on a lot and had to mentally start over.

Q: You said you were a poet, can you write a poem for us?

A: Can you handle being blown away?

Q: Can you write a poem about Mercyhurst Rowing just off the top of your head? As a nice way to finish this interview?

30 minutes goes by of Mackenzie trying to prove herself as the next great American poet 

A: Ode to Incoming Mercyhurst Rowers

Welcome to Mercyhurst Rowing, 

Our pride is always showing.

The lightweight men 

Weigh-in again

And ride ponies off in the sunset.

Welcome to Findley Lake,

The docks will always break

Adrian speaks

Rates will peak

And burritos will make us happy

Welcome to Egan Dining Hall

Where rowers go after study hall

Rhonda says hi

The eggs go goodbye

And I’m sorry but that is all.

Signing off - SoundSlide Project

This Blog started out as a project for one of my communication classes, but it has evolved into so much more than that.

First, I want to give a huge shout out to my blog partner and teammate, Chelsea Guida. This wouldn't have been such a success without you. Rock on girl.

I must admit, this process has turned out to be so rewarding. Throughout all of the interviews and posts I learned more about my team and myself than I ever imagined. The truth of the matter is that these guys opened up their lives to me during these interviews; so much so that I couldn't post some of the things they said because that's how personal and emotional it got. That being said, it was such a fun journey with far too many laughs to count along the way. My teammates continue to inspire me day in and day out, I hope by reading this blog and listening to their stories, you are all as inspired and motivated as I am.

Our final assignment was to make a SoundSlide story that went along with the theme of our blog. I wanted mine to be very visually appealing and to tell a great story. I thought, what better person to feature than my beautiful girlfriend Leah. If you are reading this Leah, you inspire me to be the man I am and you encourage me every step of the way. Everyone counted you out in the fall when you were injured, but look at you now. You are such an amazing athlete and even better human being. Keep doing you babe.

(Check out my SoundSlide story featuring my girlfriend, Leah Griffin)

http://hosting.soundslides.com/bp319

Signing off,
Brian Comey

P.S. - Many of you know me very well, especially how I turn everything into a competition. Since we launched our blog, we have received nearly 3,000 page views! That is a victory in my book. No one else in our class had anywhere close to that number. So for that, Chelsea and I thank you for assisting in this win, truly a team effort.

Men's Team Monday

This is the last Men's Team Monday of the season so I had to feature my boy. They say we were "randomly selected" as roommates last year, but I believe some greater force created the unbreakable 321 Boyz (Our room number Freshman year). Nick has taught me so much about life just over the course of two years that I actually went to my academic advisor and asked him if I could count living with Nick as my philosophy requirement. 

Nick always tells me that "You can catch flies with honey, but you can catch more honeys being fly"

Nick, if you are reading this, here's to being fly and catching honeys together 'till the day we die. 

Name: Nicholas "Wide Neck" Wnek

Class: Sophomore 

Years Rowing: 6

Degree of Study: Sustainability Studies 

Position: 3 Seat Varsity LWT 4+

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA (Fishtown)

Fun Fact: Enjoys Chick Flicks 

Philadelphia is one of the greatest cities in the world in terms of rowing (and in general). Growing up in the city, when did rowing become part of your life? 

"I started getting involved with rowing because of my Dad. He works with the Philadelphia Fire Department and he was a part of their Dragon Boat team. He would practice on the Schuylkill River and come home and tell me about all of the rowers he saw training out on the river. He mentioned how fit  they were and how it could help keep me in shape for football." 

"Also, my cousin, John Snyder (he's a beast) rowed in high school and earned a scholarship to college for it, that lead to him to train a bit with the under 23 National Team" 

As you packed your bags to head upstate for college, what impact did the City and the Schuylkill have on you both as a racer and an individual that you carry with you wherever you go? 

"Well I was leaving home for the first time. I never really traveled that much growing up, I pretty much stayed in the neighborhood with friends and family. Being in the city I always had a shield up and kept to myself. Especially when I used to take the bus and subway to school everyday - I just had a guard up at all times. [The City] makes you a strong, independent, individual, not as accepting and friendly to strangers. I noticed this on move-in-day when some kids in my hallway were looking at me as I walked towards my room. At first I was like what the hell are they looking at? As they got closer they said "Hey, whats up?" I didn't know if they were talking to me, but after the fact it was kind of an eye opener to what it was going to be like up here." 

"Training on the Schuylkill throughout High School was very beneficial in terms of being around elite athletes all the time. It forces you hold yourself to high standards and to be mature on the river." 

I understand you were looking at a few other schools, what was it about Mercyhurst that grabbed you? 

"I kind of wanted to get away a bit, and the other schools were a lot closer to home. I wanted to experience something new. All of the grass and trees and big front lawns were all something I've never been exposed to. It still had that neighborhood feel that I embraced back home. So it was a combination of new experiences and the sense of community I grew up around." 

Don't start crying on me now, but as you approach the half-way point in your college career, what are some of your favorite things about this whole experience? 

"Connecting myself with people I could've never imagined meeting. I know have a group of friends that I consider brothers from all over the world. I now have brothers from Serbia, Germany, Poland, Canada, Connecticut, Pittsburg, Boston, Arizona, Miami, and DC....all linked by a common passion. It is a very unique experience. There is no better feeling in the world then going up to the line with eight other guys knowing they got your back and you have theirs and you're about to throw that thing down the course..HOT!"

As you approach your 7th year of rowing, as one of the top varsity athletes in this program, what is your philosophy on the sport of rowing? 

"My personal philosophy, when it comes to rowing, is: Don't try to make a boat, try to make a boat go fast. What this means is that I don't train to specifically to make a certain boat, I want to be able to adapt to whatever boat I am in and be able to contribute everything I have to the boat speed and make it go faster in any scenario. I try to achieve that goal by looking at every day as an opportunity to better myself and get faster. I don't do this by taking leaps and bounds. I take it inches at a time; Strokes at a time. If I take one hundred good strokes in the morning I try to take one hundred and one good strokes in the afternoon. Same as a race, you don't win it by strokes, you win it by inches." 

As you take on the role of being the eldest child back home, who is the most influential person in your life thus far that has made you the role model you are for your younger siblings and peers? 

"First off, I am not a child. I am a grown ass man. Getting back to the question, I would hands down have to say that my father is the most influential person in my life. He's the type of guy that wakes up every morning, packs his lunch, puts his hard hat on, and goes to work. He gets the job done day in and day out. He is, without a doubt, the hardest working man I know. He has taught me to be an honest working man who leads by example." 

Before we leave, drop some knowledge bombs on our readers.

"There are two things about integrity: 

1) If you have it, nothing matters. 

2) If you don't have it, nothing matters." 

Famous quotes from the man himself: 

-It is what it isn't 

-Expectations are premeditated resentment

-3. 2. 1. Boyz!

-Yo my boy Matt Weaver

-V-Quad Boyz

-Donkey Punch it down the race course

-Controlled caos boys...controlled caos

-FMP

-Lets Get SWEATY

Reflection: Knecht Cup

As you can see over on the right side of the blog, we only have 4 days until we hit the road for Dad Vails. ONLY 4 DAYS!

Amidst all of the excitement surrounding Dad Vail's week, I've been taking some time out of each day to reflect on this season. It has been a roller coaster of a ride, and totally different than any season I have had since I joined this sport. I want to take you back to the weekend of April 11th when the team travelled to Princeton, NJ to compete at the Knecht Cup on Mercer Lake. I never talked about this race because something happened to our boat that weekend. It was a coxswains worst nightmare...we missed our race. The regatta was unusually unorganized this year because Saturday racing got cancelled (for the most part), due to very high winds. This pushed almost all of the races into Sunday, forcing the regatta to be very hectic. My boat won the morning semi-final very easily, crossing the line about 10 beats (strokes-per-minute) than we normally would in a contended race. After taking the majority of the day to stay off of our legs, our boat returned to the course from the hotel around an hour before we had to launch for the final.

(Men's 4+ Knecht Cup)

As we arrived to the course, our teammates and coaches notified us that the regatta was delayed about a half an hour due to the amount of races they were trying to squeeze in. We adjusted our pre-race plan accordingly, and proceeded to warm-up when the time was right. Somehow, from the time we got to the race course to the time we started rowing up to the starting platforms, the regatta had caught back up to the original schedule. There was only one problem; we had no idea.

I had the guys running through our normal warm-up procedure and all of the focus was internal so none of the guys, including myself was that concerned with what was going on outside of the boat. As we took a break in warming up to get some water and strip down a layer of clothing, we began to look around and get a sense of what was going on around us. When we looked out onto the race course I could feel every heart in our boat sink into the bottom of the hull as we all realized simultaneously that the race we were supposed to be in, the final, the won we wanted to win; was already a quarter of the way into the race. Devastated is the only word that I can use to describe the feeling as the officials told us to row back to the docks since we missed our race. Not a word was said going back to the docks.

There is around 40 combined years of rowing in our four and not one of us had ever missed a race. I can only speak for myself, but I still have nightmares where in my dream my boat misses the race. I have had at least one every week since Knecht Cup. As a coxswain, I carry a lot of responsibility in terms of making sure everything is right on race day and I took a lot of the blame that day, even though no one else blames me. Obviously I have channeled it into a learning point in my career and another page in the story our boat is writing this season, but at the end of the day I still get flashbacks to the feeling I had that Sunday afternoon. I'm sure I sound ridiculous in saying all of this; perhaps you have to be in that situation to understand.

This is just one piece of the story that brings us into Dad Vails; look forward to reading more on the 'Road to Dad Vails' throughout this week!

Stay Classy,
B

4 Days 'til Vails: Visualization

Only the men's team raced this weekend, which meant the women's team finally got a weekend off from racing. However, our definition of a weekend off here at Mercyhurst is probably slightly different compared to what you had in mind. 

The men sent two eights to race this weekend and they departed at 7am for the Princeton Boathouse. Meanwhile back at Findley Lake, the women went out with a former Mercyhurst rower so we wouldn't miss any practice while both of our coaches were gone. Friday afternoon we did something a little bit different than our usual 2:20-5 tech practice on the water. Instead, each boat got together and did tech work in the tanks and then visualization. 

A visualization is when the boat all sits together, turns off the lights, and the coxswain "talks them through a race". Starting with the moment the boat gets off the bus, the coxswains tells them what the weather is like, what the boat is doing to prep for the race, the warm-up, all leading up to when they get hands-on. Following that the details of rowing up to the start, getting in the stake boats, who's in our race, and finally - the race. Just like they would in a race the coxswain goes through the entire start sequence and then is informing the rowers what is going on each 500 all the way until the boat crosses the finish line. The rowers then open their eyes and turn the lights on and the visualization has ended.

The reason for the lights out, race day discussions? There's a lot of solid research out there that supports the use of performance visualizations and the research shows that this can help build muscle memory as well as anxiety reduction. It's the idea that if you picture yourself doing something, and having it so smoothly, your body and brain will be more likely to focus on the task at hand when race day comes along without being anxious since it's technically done it before.

All of this leading up to one goal: Dad Vail Regatta