Since probably the age of seven or eight, I have not gone more than a couple of months at a time without being on a sports team of some kind, whether this be rec league co-ed soccer coached by a parent or Division 1 rowing at Fordham University. Athletics has also been a stable force throughout my childhood and into my adult life. It has provided me with not only an outlet for my physical and mental health, but also with community, confidence and life lessons.

I had the experience that many others have during childhood of trying out a bunch of different sports to see what sticks and had the privilege of parents who would spend hours out of their time driving me to practices and games. Throughout elementary school, soccer and basketball were my main “focus” (I use this word loosely as I would often be caught picking flowers in the field during games), with a little bit of tee-ball and swim team thrown in there. My love for soccer did not last long, though, and, in middle school, I joined my school’s inaugural volleyball team. I was instantly hooked and fell in love with the sport. For someone like me, six feet tall, basketball and volleyball were the perfect sports where I was able to excel.

The first couple of weeks of freshman year of college were hard for me, as it is for many other new students thrown into a strange new environment for the first time. The transition from my small town and local high school, where I knew almost every student, to living in New York City and attending a university 15 times the size of any school I have ever been to and knowing practically no one, was hard and created an immense amount of uncertainty in my life. But, if I’m being honest, my biggest struggle wasn’t the new environment, lack of friends or college-level classes — it was my new day-to-day schedule. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I had large amounts of free time. It felt like I had no structure in my life. I would come back from class and find myself with endless options of what to do while also having nothing to do at all at the same time.

During the first week of school, I found myself at the club fair, along with many other freshmen looking to get involved and meet new people. While hopping from table to table, adding my name to the email list of any club even remotely interesting to me, I came across the women’s rowing team table. At the time, I didn’t know much about the sport and never knew anyone who did it. I thought it was just a funny sport that only private schools had where you rowed backward down a river while someone in the front of the boat yelled at you the whole time (thinking about it now, though, I was not entirely wrong).

I approached the table to learn more about this foreign sport and quickly learned that my height would be an advantage to me, even if I were completely new. Hearing this was not new to me, and coaches all my life had been utilizing me for my height to score easy layups or blocks at the net, but hearing this about rowing surprised me. I never considered that my height would help me with a water sport.

I added my name to the email list, not thinking much of it at the time, making it just one of dozens of other clubs that I expressed interest in. Within two weeks or so, I received an email from the coach explaining that the first practice for walk-ons would be at 6 a.m. the next week. I remember reading this and laughing out loud, “why would anyone voluntarily wake up that early every day?” I told my mom about the email and that I was considering going. Knowing that I was struggling with the lack of structure, she persuaded me to give it a try, reminding me about how much I have always loved being a part of a sports team and that this would be the perfect opportunity to meet people.

I went to the first walk-on practice along with about 15-20 other girls, some with rowing experience and some with none. Every week, sometimes every day, there were more and more girls who quit, deciding that the time commitment and early wake-up was not for them.

The thing about rowing is that there is such a high learning curve during your first couple of weeks with the sport. You go from not knowing how to sit in the boat or hold the oar, to rowing long distances with a whole crew.

I would be lying if I told you that I immediately loved rowing when I first joined. The 6 a.m. practice times six days a week were a stark awakening to what it took to really be a Division 1 athlete. The sport has provided me with the structure to my schedule that I was seeking and lacking since high school. It has also given me friendships and bonds that only six days a week practice through rain, waves and cold can form.

Thinking about what I will do after college makes me anxious. Without that stable force of a team and athletics giving me structure and discipline, what will I do with myself? I don’t know who I am without it. I may have to join an adult volleyball league or go down the classic pipeline of D1 athlete to marathon runner; only time will tell.