Colin Kirby '21 Recruiting Profile

I want to further my rowing as I enjoy the personal and team challenges as they fuel my mental and physical toughness.

The average person has never rowed and many people that have tried it, do it once and never return. Rowing is grueling. When done right, rowing uses your entire body and we row six days a week. When we can’t row out on the water, we have rowing machines that we train on. We also run long mileage and lift weights to condition. Before I joined the team, the guys used to push a car around a nearby neighborhood to train. My point is, rowing is tough, not just physically, but mentally too. I’ll never forget my very first race as a freshman. Because rowers begin and end the day as an entire team, we had to leave Orlando at 4:30am. The wind chill was forty-five degrees, which is cold for a Florida kid, and the sun never came out that entire day. My race was the very last race of the day and because of delays, my boat sat out on the water waiting to race for two hours. By 5:30pm my body was frozen and it was almost dark, but as soon as I heard the start sound I rowed just like I’d trained. It took everything I had to keep going the distance, but I finished and I loved it.

Rowing requires so much time and physical energy that it forces me to be organized. I try to bring the structure that we have in practice to my everyday routine from sleeping to eating to studying. When I started rowing I weighed less than 110 pounds. Two years later I've put on 40 pounds and the endocrinologist says I've got another four inches to grow. The best part of rowing to me is the friendships I’ve built. I think because it is such a tough and rare sport I share a bond of brotherhood with the other rowers that not many people can understand. We’ve literally struggled through the pain together and we keep each other going through the tough times. I’ve only been rowing for two years, but it’s brought so much meaning to my life and helped me grow both physically and mentally. I can’t wait to see where it takes me these next two years.