Name: Calina Schanze
Class Standing: Sophomore
Hometown: Behlendorf, Germany
Photo courtesy of Calina Schanze (left)
What’s it like being on the UW Rowing Team? How has it affected your life?
“Without rowing, I wouldn’t be in the US at all. Rowing is really giving me the opportunity to study here. To have the term ‘student athlete’ is so cool to me. Football is obviously the big one, but there are so many other sports here also. And it’s cool to be at a school where people actually know what rowing is. So I really wanted to be at a place where people appreciated rowing – back in Germany, it’s not very big, and people don’t understand how hard it is.
Like next weekend we have the Windermere Cup and thousands of people will be watching; we’ll be racing China and there will be some local schools as well. It’s opening day for the Yacht Club so all the boats will be decorated and the Husky Band will be on a boat too. It’s almost a cultural event with the community – people love cheering “Go Huskies!” and having a good time. That enthusiasm is really unique to Seattle and rowing here.
The Training Table, where the athletes eat, is in the boathouse overlooking the water so all the football players and other athletes come to eat there too, which is so fun. Everything we need is right down there by Husky Stadium; I think they call it the Athletic Village.
People will walk past on their way to the IMA and see us train and decide they want to be a varsity athlete and they can just try out! About a third of our team is walk-ons, they just tried out, made the team, and started to learn how to row.
Last year, 2 girls who started out as walk-ons actually went to the Rio Olympics. Kerry Simmons won the Gold Medal in the US Women’s Eight! There are a lot of Olympians who come out of UW Rowing. I think the Huskies have been represented at almost every summer Olympics. Our new coach is even an Olympian. She tries to really make us the best athletes we can be and everyone is really committed.
What’s the day to day routine like?
We spend 20 hours of practice actually rowing. We usually train twice a day and then once on Saturday and then have Sundays off. We train most of the time on the water, since in Seattle we don’t have to worry about the water freezing over, which happens at other schools like in New England. We have to do strength training and conditioning all year round, so it’s about half rowing and half strength/conditioning and erging when we’re not in season, and since we’re in season right now it’s mostly rowing. We try to get a lot of mileage, so we go to Lake Union or we even went around Mercer Island one time.
The best part of rowing in the morning is seeing the sunrise – and I think most people sleep through that. It’s amazing. Most days you get a really nice sunrise.
We have a special academic advisor to help fit all our classes and requirements in; there are a couple restrictions sometimes, like I can’t take 8:30 am classes in the winter or spring.
How did you become interested in rowing?
I started rowing in 2007, when I was eleven. The World Rowing Championships were in Germany, and my summer rowing camp went to watch and it was so cool.
So I’m from a really small town in Germany and there’s honestly not much else to do. Rowing was the only competitive sport that you could really do plus it let me travel a lot.
What’s your favorite rowing team memory?
Last year, for the Windermere Cup, I was in Varsity 8 [the best 8 people on the team] and we won against Cambridge, from England. It was a beautiful day, there were thousands of people on The Cut, the parade was coming in, and we got our medals and it was just a perfect moment. There were so many people there just celebrating. We’d had dinner the night before at the Space Needle, and everyone had dressed up.
This year we’ve been ranked #1 in the country for four weeks now so I’m really, really curious about where this season will lead. I’m hoping that in the end we’ll be in New Jersey at the NCAA Championships at the top of the leaderboard, and then that’ll be my new favorite rowing memory.
What’s the hardest part?
The grind. In fall and winter, when it gets dark, you spend a lot of time on the erg [rowing machine]. Rowing is pretty painful. It strains your body. You’re tired and sore and you have to tell yourself it’s fun even when it’s not fun. But it’s all worth it at the finish line when you get to win with your best friends. You work really hard for those moments.
Do you think there are any misconceptions about student athletes?
Some people think it’s really easy being an athlete because of our benefits, getting food, getting tutors, that kind of thing. Maybe people don’t even think about rowing specifically but I know people make assumptions about the football or basketball players. I think it’s hard to see how much work it is behind the scenes, but if not every student sees it I can live with that because I get to represent the university every day. We miss a lot of class because of traveling, but we do all our schoolwork on the bus or an airplane.
When I leave the boathouse I try to be a regular person. I’m just a regular person with a really time-consuming hobby. Some players wear their gear all the time, but I don’t because I don’t want people to make assumptions about me just based on how I look.
A hard part of being a student athlete is making friends outside of your sport, since you have so little free time.
Why did you decide to go to school in the US, specifically UW?
There were a bunch of American schools that were recruiting me for rowing. America’s actually pretty much the only country that has really serious college athletics, because in other countries you kind of have to make the choice between athletics and academics, you can’t have both.
I came out on an official visit to Seattle and it blew my mind. There was so much water and greenery and mountains and the sea, and everyone in Seattle is so open-minded and welcoming. I visited Boston right after and the people were just busy and in their own world. The people and the city were so much colder!
The culture of Seattle just made me realize how much I wanted to be here. In most schools you actually have to drive to the boathouse because most campuses aren’t on the water, but here the boathouse is right on campus and it saves so much time. And fun fact, I actually read Boys In The Boat on the flight home from my Seattle visit.
Once you moved here, was there anything that surprised you?
My favorite thing is… Obviously food is really important to me–as an athlete I eat so much—and American breakfast makes my day every day. At home I just have like cereal and a slice of bread, there are no real breakfast restaurants. Freshman year, I’d go out to breakfast every weekend. I still go to Portage Bay Cafe at least twice a month.
Monday is Decision Day, when freshmen have to commit to a college – what advice would you give someone if they’re trying to choose between a few schools?
Choosing a school is really about where you can see yourself, where you can see yourself being a student and going to class, going out, having friends, just living. Do you fit in with the culture? The climate? The vibe you get is really important. Go with your gut instinct.
What’s your favorite part of UW?
My team. Being part of the team is amazing. What’s really special about the rowing team at UW is that it’s not just the current team, there’s hundreds of alums who still care about the program so much. They organize events and banquets and they’re still part of it. Obviously, I’ll be really sad when I graduate because I won’t be on the team anymore, but I won’t lose the team either. I may not be racing for Washington anymore, but I’ll always be part of Washington Rowing.
It’s bigger than yourself. You’re just a part.
You have a lot going on – how do you stay sane and organized and on top of everything?
Yes, rowing is work, but I “work” with all my friends. I think because we’re all in a similar situation, we support and understand each other really well. The seniors and juniors really help the underclassmen, and you can always reach out to someone; they’ll make time for you.
At the end of the day, you just have to be efficient. Being a student athlete you don’t have a lot of time, just straight up. You have to manage your time really well. I don’t have a lot of “free time,” in terms of hanging around watching Netflix or hanging out with my friends doing nothing. But I hang out with my rowing friends 30 hours a week on the lake, in the locker room, and when we’re travelling.
Also, our coaches care about our classes and they try to help us find balance too to be successful in class and on the water. I was struggling with a class last quarter and I went to my coach and said, “I really need to study more for this,” and she was really supportive and we worked out a make-up schedule.
I think as a freshman it’s really intimidating to ask for help because everyone takes rowing so seriously, but if you just ask people really do want to help you.
You were just admitted to UW’s Foster School of Business– how are you feeling?
I’m really excited to be in Foster now because UW is so big that you have to find your communities within that. Rowing was that for me, but now Foster is an academic community I’m part of now too. I think Foster really prepares you for life. My parents didn’t go to university and they own their own little company, and they’re really successful with what they do but they always say they could have done better and have more impact if they’d learned how to [in business school].
So I think it’s really important to get a good foundation and open yourself up to possibilities from there. The connections that Foster has with incredible companies in the community is crazy – Boeing drops by, Amazon, Microsoft… There are so many cool majors at UW, but if you really want to impact the world, it’s businesses that pretty much run the world. Everything is connected to business.
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During your time in college, what’s something really valuable you’ve learned that hasn’t been homework-based or academic?
Being persistent. I honestly didn’t know – I knew I had to apply to my major but I didn’t know how competitive it would be, especially as an international student. As an athlete, I think it’s tempting to choose easy majors because when classes are easy you can focus on your athletics and nothing else. But I don’t think Rocks for Jocks or cultural classes would lead me where I want to go, even if it was less stressful for homework and stuff. I also believe in not quitting before you try something, like don’t write yourself off as “not a math person” because of one bad experience back in high school.
You love to travel – what are some of your favorite spots you’ve been?
So I’ve traveled a lot through rowing. Obviously in Europe everything is closer so we would just casually go to France, Belgium, Lithuania, Denmark… But I went on a high school exchange to Australia and I rowed there as well. I was recruited at the World Junior Championships and that’s how I came here.
So UW just walked up to you and said, “hey!”
Pretty much. Since there are those walk-ons, UW is also looking for experienced international rowers for their team.
My family has always been into traveling too, and I think that’s part of why I came here, because they raised me and my sister to have a really open mind and be interested in other countries. My sister is actually on the team as well. It’s such a dream to live and study in another country for four years.
What’s it like rowing with your sister?
It’s great. I love it. There’s a lot of people I’m close with on the team, but having someone from my family here when we’re so far from home is really nice.
Any coffeeshop recommendations?
Zoka Coffee Roasters, down by UVillage, and Oddfellows. There’s Little Oddfellows too, which is right next door in Elliott Bay Bookstore, I love it there.
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Favorite movie?
Hidden Figures was really good. And The Imitation Game.
What do you do in your free time?
So I get Sundays off and those are my days to explore Seattle. Recently: Golden Gardens, Discovery Park, Capitol Hill. For President’s Day Weekend I went down to Cannon Beach in Oregon, and the team took a ski trip up to Stevens Pass. And I’m always on the hunt for great breakfast places.
Photo courtesy of Calina Schanze (left)
Current favorite song?
There are some people on the team who spend a lot of time making workout playlists for us. They’re really passionate about it. We listen to a lot of Beyoncé because one of the girls who makes the playlists really likes Beyoncé. My favorite Beyoncé song to work out to is probably Single Ladies.
My favorite song in general right now is You Don’t Know Me by Jax Jones.
And for some reason right now my favorite Spotify playlist is the Hot Country one.
Favorite nail polish color? For race day I like to paint my nails purple and gold.