Walking into FHC after a five year absence, something was very different for Senior Taylor Haaroja. This time when she walked in, she was no longer a soccer player. But through much determination Haaraoja started rowing and with only one year of experience under her belt she has committed to row at Division 1 school Drake University.

When Haaroja was 11 she tore her ACL. When she started playing soccer a year later, everything was back to normal. But after only a couple weeks back she tore her meniscus and almost her entire knee out. After this, doctors told Haaraoja that she could no longer play soccer.

“After I was told that soccer was out of the picture I didn’t think that I was going to play anything in college. I was lost,” Haaroja said.

When she came back to FHC after living in Fenton, Michigan for 5 years, one of her swimming friends encouraged her to do crew.  According to Haaroja, when she was first told that she should row, she at first denied it, saying that she wasn’t interested. But after a couple of weeks, her friends wore her down.

“People really underestimate crew, as I did before I started,” Haaroja said. “Rowing is really overlooked, like I overlooked it before and it takes a lot of endurance and really keeps me in shape.”

Because Haaroja joined when she came back to FHC, she had to be on Novice as a junior, which isn’t that uncommon. But according to senior captain Zoe Niswonger, having Haaroja be on novice last year really encouraged all the younger novice and showed them how working hard can get you into better boats and races.

Another senior captain, Jake Sitarski, comments that working hard is something that is overlooked in crew as people don’t understand how physically difficult it is. He also explains training:

“Crew training starts in January when the river is still frozen,” Sitarski said. “We do not even start actually rowing until mid March if the weather permits it. Also the team competes at very high levels. We had a state champion JV boat last year and competed against some of the best teams in all of North America.”

The crew team is one of the biggest teams in the school with just over 100 people. Out of those people, only 25 have the opportunity to go to Canada to compete at the international level. Haaraoja was one of them.

“It was an incredible feeling to be pulled up for States,” Haaraoja said. “But it was a whole other honor to be 1 out of 25 people to be invited to go to Canada.”

Haaraoja explained that when she started really loving crew, her parents encouraged her to set up a recruiting page because they heard that crew gives good scholarships.

After a couple months, the Drake University coach contacted her, and Haaraoja set up an unofficial visit to see the campus and talk with the coach. She also visited Nova Southeastern but decided that she liked Drake and the atmosphere there better. She then visited Drake a couple times in the summer and committed to continue her educational and rowing career at Drake University on September 19th.

“I’m excited that I have the opportunity to row in college because I never had a chance at playing a sport in college, and that was something that I was going to miss,” Haaroja said.