Rowing dividends
St. Catharines Rowing Club member accepts full scholarship from St. Joseph’s University
Annamaria Lavecchia will be the first to admit that she likes to push herself.
The 17-year-old picked rowing when the time came to pick an activity when she started high school four years ago.
Given the ongoing training demands, rowing is as much a yearround lifestyle as it is a sport.
This September, when Lavecchia begins attending St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia on a fouryear, athletic scholarship, she will push herself even harder. In addition to pursuing a double major, in English as well as in psychology, she will continue rowing.
“I think I am just addicted to the sport really, the competition, the pain,” the daughter of Tony and Michelle Lavecchia said. “I like to improve, I’m a highly competitive athlete, so it’s nice to see myself improving and that’s what I really get out of this sport.”
The Grade 12 student at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls credits rowing with improvements to her life off the water as well.
Oh, like increasing her pain threshold, for instance?
“I definitely think so,” she answered with a laugh. “After ERG-ing for a full winter you definitely build that up.”
She has been a member of the St. Catharines Rowing Club for the past four years but didn’t begin thinking about pursuing a scholarship until she began working with a coach at the club.
“Michele Fisher pushed me to get out on the radar,” Lavecchia said. “She hooked me up with some university coaches.
“She gave me their names and told me to fill out questionnaires.”
Lavecchia, who attended Saint Paul Catholic High School for two years before transferring to Myer, was introduced to the flatwater sport by the rowing club.
“It was something I had never done before, but I really liked being out on the water,” she recalled. “I thought I would give it a try.
“I heard it would build character, which I thought would be really good as a person.”
She made campus visits to the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Barron University, as well as the boathouse at Princeton before deciding to accept a full scholarship offer from St. Joseph’s.
Lavecchia made the visits armed with a checklist. In addition to having the academic program she wanted, the “team dynamic” likewise was an important factor.
“You’re going to spend most of your time with these girls,” she said. “You want to like them and get along well with them, and I think the team dynamic was really there.
“It just showed me a ‘day-in-thelife,’ what it would be like at St. Joe’s.”
The Jesuit school of about 9,000 students checked off all the boxes on her checklist.
“Everything was there for me: my programs were great, the girls were great, the coaches are great.”
She will be leaving her family for the first time when she attends the university in Philadelphia, but she will hardly be alone.
“I think it will be a little hard for me the first time being away from home,” she said. “But when I went to go and visit St. Joe’s, the girls on that team automatically made me feel like family.”
Lavecchia, who hopes to edit a high-end magazine or practise behavioural psychology after she graduates, isn’t worried juggling a double major on top of rowing for St. Joe’s will be too much to handle.
“I’m really put together time management-wise,” she said. “You have to be if you’re getting in rowing training plus other workouts.”
Lavecchia believes enthusiasm will go a long way to making the myriad demands of academics and athletics bearable.
“I think the fact I am highly interested in psychology and English will be a big part of it, too,” she said. “I will be doing things that I enjoy doing.”
Lavecchia has rowed a single at the club and high school level, but isn’t worried about competing in larger boats at St. Joe’s. She pointed out single rowers are usually recruited as sweepers for the eight.
“I’ve been in doubles, quads and eights,” she said. “I will be fine with the transition.”
Fisher began coaching Lavecchia in March 2017.
“But I do feel I’ve been coaching her longer than that,” the St. Catharines Rowing Club coach said. “She’s a very engaging person, she really loves being in the St. Catharines Rowing Club environment and with her teammates.”
“She’s a very social person and I think that’s part of what rowing gives to her and she gives back to rowing.”
Fisher, a St. Catharines native and a graduate of the former West Park Secondary School, went to Pennsylvania on a rowing scholarship.
“I can identify why she likes the area and the liberal arts education she is looking for can definitely be found at St. Joe’s.”
Fisher speaks from experience when she tells scholarship recipients what to expect after they take rowing to the collegiate level.
“I tell them it’s going to be a whole new beginning and that for sure that academics will be so much more allencompassing,” she said. “That’s maybe the wrong word, but it’s going to be a challenge.”
Rowing at the collegiate level in the U.S. is a year-round sport.
“The affiliation that you feel with your university and your team is second to none,” Fisher said.
I think it will be a little hard for me the first time being away from home. But when I went to go and visit St. Joe’s, the girls on that team automatically made me feel like family.” A.N. Myer Secondary School student Annamaria Lavecchia