When you know someone well — and by knowing them, I mean sleeping on a bed six feet away from theirs every night — it’s difficult to come up with interesting and insightful questions when it seems you already know almost everything about them. So, after analyzing the countless number of conversations I’ve had with Anna Hinck, FCRH ’25, there were two subjects for questions I felt myself returning to: sports and the Pacific Northwest. 

Interview notes on my laptop and a voice memo recording on my phone between us, Hinck and I sat on the floor of our Finlay Hall triple on a quiet Wednesday night as she answered all of my questions. 

Hinck participated in rowing throughout high school in her hometown of Seattle, Wash. Now, she can brag about being a Division I athlete as a proud member of the Fordham women’s rowing team. 

“​​I did it in high school, and I wanted to have a team in college and a team environment like I did in high school,” Hinck said. A team with friends is even more special, as Hinck said one of the reasons she loved rowing so much was because “I liked how I got to hang out with my friends all the time.” 

When asked what her favorite memory from Fordham rowing thus far was, Hinck reminisced on their stay on campus over spring break in March 2022. “Last spring, we stayed at Fordham for a week over spring break, and it was really fun because no one else was really here. So we just all got to hang out together and we did a bunch of team bonding stuff. It was a lot of fun.” 

Another reason Hinck enjoys rowing is “how you get to be outside all the time, in every season.” Being outdoors is a vital part of Hinck’s life, partly due to growing up next to a mountain range in the Pacific Northwest area. “I really, really love how close to nature we are, and also how passionate everyone is about protecting the earth and the climate.” 

Climate change is a significant issue to Hinck, who said her view on this pressing matter has been shaped by the land she grew up surrounded by. “I think growing up in such a biodiverse place, it really has shaped how I view the climate crisis and stuff related to that.”

While rowing alongside beautiful nature, skies and waters take up a significant majority of Hinck’s time, it is not the only sport she enjoys. Many times, I’ve walked into our dorm to see Hinck watching live streams of other sports — football, hockey, soccer. Formula 1, another sport I’ve caught her live-streaming, is near and dear to Hinck’s heart, as her brother and father got her into it. 

“Actually, I did not like F1 for a large part of my life, and then I started watching with my brother. I got really interested in the technical aspects of the sport, like how the cars work and how everything comes together. I thought that was really interesting,” Hinck said. 

Her knowledge of F1 is unquestionably impressive — one day, Hinck made a PowerPoint slideshow for a friend detailing each team, each team’s racers and the type of car they used. 

With memories like that at the forefront of my mind, interviewing Hinck could never be truly, completely serious. We joked about her admiration of F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback Geno Smith, the traumatizing 2015 Super Bowl between Seattle and New England — a “show-stopper” in the Finlay triple, as our third roommate is a Patriots fan — and what NHL team she would want to be a sports journalist for. 

But that’s the beauty of being friends with Hinck. You get to experience love for her world, her friends and her family first-hand. It can seem difficult to hold so many passions, but Hinck manages to add more and more to an ever-growing list of things that she loves. 

So, what’s next for Hinck? The goal: placing top three at the Atlantic 10’s Championship with her team. But for now, she’ll have to wait until she can get back out on the New York waters with her teammates again.