EMMA DOWDS '22 Recruiting Profile

I think I would be a good candidate for a college team, because I have already had a lot of obstacles to overcome, and I never stop fighting.

I started my athletic path as a swimmer.  I began swimming competitively when I was seven years old.  I absolutely loved it the first few years.  After some coaching changes, and growing older, I lost my passion for it towards the end of middle school.  Going into high school, I was not sure what I wanted to do, but I realized I did not want to continue swimming.  During the fall of 2018, I did some research and decided to try Crew.  I began the workouts in November and quickly realized I was pretty good at the Erg.  In January 2019, I did my first 2K test and had a faster time than all of the girls on the team, except for 1 senior.  I knew I had found my new sport!  

Unfortunately,  the end of January, I lost my balance sitting down after a practice and banged the back of my head off an Erg machine and ended up with a pretty bad concussion that took me out for about 6 weeks.  I came back in time to start the water practices in March.  I immediately fell in love with being on the water.  After about a week, though, I started having pain in my wrist.  I saw the doctor and he did not see anything wrong with the bone, so I continued to row all season.   The pain on my wrist continued to get worse, and I ended up getting an MRI.  The doctor thought there might be a tear,  but wasn't sure, so he gave me the option to see how it was after I rested it for the summer, or he could go in and see what was going on.  I knew I could not afford to miss anymore training time, so I opted to have the surgery.  He indeed found a TFCC tear and repaired it.  Said we made the right call.  He was amazed that I was able to row all season with that injury.

So, the bottom line is that although I am currently recovering from my surgery, I am 100% committed to starting the fall season at full capacity and helping the team to have the best crew season ever.

I will provide an update towards the end of summer and will also get video, as soon as I am cleared to get on an Erg again.