Lauren Henne’s Rowing Journal

April 10, 2000

Lauren Henne (Hilton Head, S.C.) is a senior member of the Clemson Rowing Team and is the team’s captain. As a co-captain last season, Henne was chosen as the team’s Most Valuable Athlete as well as being a member of the ACC Academic Honor Roll.

These were some of our focuses we developed to prepare for our race with the “Big Dogs.”

Belief “In order to succeed we must first believe that we can.” Michael Korda

Confidence “If you’re prepared, then you’re able to feel confident…” Robert J. Ringer

Courage “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not the absence of fear.” Mark Twain

Risk “If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” Erica Jong

Desire “One essential to success is that your desire be an all-abscessing one, your thoughts and aims be coordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup.” Claude M. Bristol

We practiced all week with the determination and willingness to reach a common goal. By the end of the week we wanted to feel completely confident that we had done everything we could to prepare for the upcoming regatta.

We came together as a team and in our boats through the belief and trust that “the will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.” We were prepared for San Diego.

The Varsity and JV boats departed for San Diego early (3 a.m.) early on Friday morning. We arrived in San Diego around 10 a.m. with Tiger paws, flowers, and cheering family to greet us.

The race course was in Mission Bay, San Diego. To get a feel for the course and the salt water, we practiced on the course Friday afternoon. I think by this point realization had started to set in, we were really in San Diego. Our excitement showed our true desire. Saturday morning quickly rolled around. Our nerves had made the time fly by. The Varsity race was at 8:30 a.m. The water and weather were beautiful. I think everyone in that boat will agree that we learned how to push our bodies to another level during that race. We finished 6th in a heat with 6 boats, but we had absolutely no regrets. This fast heat lead the Tigers to the petite finals.

The JV boat raced at 10:20 a.m. They had an extremely close finish and placed 3rd in their heat. This lead them to the petite finals as well.

That evening we went to “The Old Spaghetti Factory” for a pasta dinner. We had meetings with our boats and then hit the sack. The JV Petite Final was at 9:20 a.m., while the Varsity race wasn’t until 12:30 p.m. Both races were very competitive. The JV finished 5th in their race. There was only 6 seconds between the 1st and last boat in their final. We finished 4th in our Varsity race. We beat out San Diego State by 2 hundredths of a second. Close race!

After we were done racing we loaded the boat and packed up all of our belongings. Then the coaches let us play. We all went to the beach and had a little boardwalk shopping excursion.

Now it was time to leave the Pacific and head back to Tiger Country. It was a challenging and successful weekend. We stepped up to the challenge and found success.