This article is part of a series focused on this year’s motto of Unum: Engage, which highlights how students engage as one in different groups across campus.
Cathedral Catholic’s Crew Team is one unified and powerful team to say the least. Rowing is one of the hardest sports, yet it often gets overlooked. Let’s learn more about the team and how their season is going so far.
Cathedral is the only high school in Southern California that has a rowing team. With this being said, the team mainly races against club teams rather than other high schools.
While the team attends races, they also attend regattas. Earlier in their season, the team went to Boston to a race called the Head of the Charles, which is the world’s largest rowing regatta. The team competed against 90 other teams in their category. At this regatta, they race down a course against many different boats.
Senior Jacob MacNab, one of the captains of Cathedral’s crew team, highlighted going to Boston for Head of the Charles as the most memorable moment of the season so far.
“The number of teams that are there was pretty incredible as well as seeing all the Ivy League teams that I will hopefully be rowing against when I am in college,” MacNab says. “It was really cool to see all those people from Europe and all over the world and get to compete against them.”
Rowing is a mental sport as much as it is physical. Tavielle Held gives us a deeper look into the difficult and mental aspects of the crew team.
“I think any rower would say the 2K test is the most difficult part of being a part of the Crew team. It is two kilometers that you row on the rowing machine, and it’s a test of both your cardio, your endurance, as well as your strength,” Held explains. “It is a very difficult test and in order to succeed you have to push yourself extremely hard.”
Crew demands complete synchronization from start to finish, with this being said, Coach Emi adds on the importance of teamwork in rowing: “There is no other sport in which teamwork is crucially essential,” Emi says.
“Every rower has to move their bodies the same, put their oars in at the same time, and move up and down the slide at the same time in an effort to make the boat go as fast as possible. There is no rest, just fatigue.”
Even a moment of hesitation can cost the team the race. Rowing isn’t just about strength it is also about precision and trust.
The Crew team is a strong and dedicated group of athletes that not only work hard but have a strong mental game. Their success isn’t only valued by wins, but by the discipline, teamwork, and resilience that they build with one another.
