Getting up early on a Saturday morning for a regatta isn’t every high schooler’s dream weekend, but for Nicole Coveyou, it’s the best part. Nicole Coveyou, a freshman at Community High School, has been participating in crew since August 2014. After attending her high school orientation at Pioneer, they told her that because she was tall, she should join crew. She decided to give it a shot. Coveyou used to participate in tumbling and trampoline for nine years before deciding to give it up to join crew. The gym was too far away, and the drive was too long. Today, Coveyou is concentrating on crew.

“I love the sport,” Coveyou said. “But I also love the family and the people there are awesome and so is the coach.” As far as being a team goes, Coveyou admits that having connections off the water helps the team grow stronger and push further to achieve goals.

Like any other sport, individual attitudes and team morale can have a great impact on how well a team performs. “If everybody is upset and kind of down, then nobody just feels happy or ready to push when they’re in the boat,” Coveyou said. “So if everybody is more happy, then we do better as a team.”

“The hardest part about crew is definitely having mental endurance and having to push yourself mentally and not only physically as well,” Coveyou said. As all sports require confidence and belief in oneself, Coveyou pushes herself more and more each day to reach her potential in crew no matter if she is in practice, or if she is at a regatta.

For the past two regattas, her boat has taken first place and Coveyou states that those were her two most accomplished moments so far. “It was really awesome. My whole entire boat, we pushed really hard and we beat everybody so it felt really good,” Coveyou said. After all the hard work and effort that they put in at practice, Coveyou couldn’t be more satisfied.

Although the sport is fun, Coveyou is learning how to balance extracurricular activities with academics. “It’s two hours a day after school, every single day… it creates a lot of stress when I am doing homework, especially late at night, because I was at crew all day,” Coveyou said.

The sport can be time-consuming and because crew takes place everyday with regattas on the weekend, Coveyou hasn’t had the opportunity yet to participate in any of her other hobbies, such as theater. She planned on doing Community Ensemble Theater (CET) and Pioneer Theater Guild (PTG), but because of crew, she hasn’t gotten the chance yet this year. She hopes to participate in theater during the off-season, since crew will have a reduced training schedule.