Tyler Colgan '24 Recruiting Profile

The first time I walked into the boathouse, I felt like a little fish in a huge, huge pond. I felt dwarfed by the boat racks filled to the ceilings with shells, but more obviously, I felt dwarfed by the people there, soon to be both my teammates and my treasured friends whom I would (not just physically) look up to. If it isn’t clear enough, to be only up to the shoulders of most of these new faces would signify an inevitable (and utterly wonderful) fate as the girls team’s new coxswain. However, the fate that my stature then seemed to doom me to would be met with obstacles in its beginning: the COVID-19 pandemic, limitations on training, and restriction on boat size. While my destiny as a coxswain was apparent to anyone looking at (or down at) me, I refused to back down from the unique challenge of what would become almost 8 months in singles, and around 14 months in total as primarily a rower: not the rowing, but the persistence, the working through pain. And although I eventually retired from my freshman-year stint as a rower, what I brought with me would become essential to my coxing: respect earned through constantly striving to be better for the good of the team. In my experience, working alongside my rowers every single day, in the same pain, gave us an unbreakable connection to and respect for each other that has never left, even after my permanent posting to the coxswain’s seat. I don’t just empathize with my rowers’ pain to fulfill my job of pushing them past it, I know it, and I’ve been right there with them. Because all in all, in the hundreds of hours we spend together as a team, I am one of them. And so, this confluence of events has given me something powerful: a bond, a community, and a family.