Marissa Amodeo, who is originally from Blacksburg, has taken to the sport after jumping in with little experience.
Marissa Amodeo, a recent Blacksburg High School graduate, has used her interest in a book to lead to an athletic career in a sport that is a mystery to most people here in our area.
The book “The Boys in the Boat” by James Brown is about the University of Washington eight-man crew that represented the US in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and beat Italy and Germany for the gold medal. During the time, rowing was so popular that millions followed the action on radio. The team became national heroes.
Amodeo said the book peaked her interest in the sport.
“I first got involved in rowing in the fall of my senior year of school. I had never heard about the sport until I read ‘The Boys in the Boat’ that summer, which peaked my curiosity in rowing,” she said.
Of course, Blacksburg High School did not have a rowing team or even a lake near the school’s campus. So, the 2016 grad ventured out on her own and discovered Virginia Tech and at least one small college were testing their skills at Claytor Lake in Pulaski County.
Amodeo was intrigued and watched them from the shore one day. When they came off the water, she started asking questions about the sport and asked if she could row with them on an occasion.
Her father had been a rower in college, so Amodeo’s interest was peaked even more. She had swam for two years as a member of the Blacksburg swim team so the water was not completely new to her.
“Long story short, I got taken under the wing of some college students in a small Division III program who taught me how to row. I practiced with them during the late summer and fall every day before school. We would alternate days using the ERG and driving 45 minutes to the nearest lake. The members of the VT crew team were incredibly welcoming, friendly, patient, hardworking and fun-they were a close-knit group connected by their love and dedication to rowing. I knew then that crew provided the challenge and team mindset that I wanted to join in college,” Amodeo said.
When it came to her choice of colleges to continue her academic career, Amodeo had outstanding grades and received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.
“I chose to go to the US Naval Academy, because I wanted to be in a challenging environment that was unique and part of something bigger than myself. I realized in high school that I wanted a career of service, and I found that USNA would allow me to join the military as a leader while pushing me to develop into the version of myself I wanted to see in the future,” she said.
Of course, the petite female has found her first year at the Academy to be the most mentally and physically challenging year of her life.
During orientation at the Naval Academy, she ventured over to the boathouse again with interest in the sport of rowing.
“I quickly found that my size and personality would suit myself and the team much better as a coxswain, so that’s what I decided to pursue at USNA with just a few previous weeks of steering experience,” she said.
This season as a freshman, Amodeo slipped into one of the most important spots for the Naval Academy’s elite women’s rowing team. She became the “coxswain”, the person that sits in the rear of the boat and directs the rowers.
“As a coxswain, I have several tasks during the race. My most visible job is safely and efficiently steering down the course. The other thing I do, arguably the more important but less measurable part, is to conduct the race plan and make calls for timing, technique, strategy, and motivation to ensure the rowers know what is happening during the race and how to stay together through the end,” she said.
The rowers can’t see what’s happening, but they can hear her calls throughout the race that informs them of rate, distance, power, position on other crews, attacking moves that the crew will take together, the sprint, how to keep the hull speed high, and so forth.
“My job is really important because I provide the connection that allows eight rowers to become one team with one mindset pushing for the same goal,” she said.
This year, she coxed the second varsity eight boat to a top 20 finish at the recent NCAA rowing championships.
Each boat is its own “event” more or less that gives a certain amount of points to the team depending on how it places in the race. At NCAA’s there is a first varsity eight (boat that holds eight rowers and a coxswain), a second varsity eight, and a varsity four (five members).
She summarizes her goal in rowing in a few words that a coach passed down to her. “Make whatever boat you are in faster. He said this to me earlier in the season when there were several weeks that I was placed in less competitive boats than I strived for. The goal is simple but it helped me bounce back and it demonstrates everything I want to embody about the sport.
“In order to make the boat you are in go faster, you have to set aside your own ambitions about what boat you want to be in or think you should be in, and just have a one-track mind of giving all your effort to the crew that’s right in front of you. Help them with their technique, be effective yet kind, steer straight, pay attention, work hard, and never give up on them. I want to keep this goal for the rest of my time on the team, and it could easily be adopted as a life motto for any team environments,” she concluded.
Amodeo is an ocean engineering major and like her classmates plans to graduate as a commissioned officer in the US Navy. She is very interested in joining the submarine warfare community upon that deployment.
