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DWR Origins: Payton Fraser & Amelia Shunk
4/21/2020 12:14:00 PM | Rowing
DURHAM, N.C. – The DWR origins continues this week with a pair of sophomores hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, Payton Fraser and Amelia Shunk.
Although the 2020 spring season was cut short, both Fraser and Shunk have wasted little time in their Duke careers to become invaluable members of the program. In her freshman campaign, Fraser helped her respective boat finish first at the Carolina Cup and Lake Wheeler Invitational, while taking second at the Cooper Sprints and Big Ten/ACC Dual. Shunk, meanwhile, turned in one of the most decorated freshman seasons in program history. She was a part of two boats that earned ACC Crew of the Week recognition, helped the varsity-4 squad to a gold medal performance at the ACC Championship and was named the ACC Freshman of the Year, becoming the first Blue Devil to earn the honor since 2013. Shunk culminated her spring by finishing fifth at the NCAA Championships in the Petite Final – the highest finish for any boat in program history at the NCAA Championships.
With the early success shared by the two Californians, it would be natural to assume they were immersed in the sport at an early age. Yet while athletics played a predominant role in both of their lives, rowing did not find itself among their interests until their high school years, as the geographically popular volleyball had always kept their attention.
Even a familial influence wasn't enough at first to ignite a passion for Shunk, a Corte Madera native whose father, Kendrick, competed for the Stanford rowing program in college.
"He always wanted me to row," Shunk said. "I did a rowing camp in seventh grade and I hated it. Both Payton and I played competitive volleyball. Around here, that's a really big thing that people in late middle school and high school play, and so we both traveled and competed against each other."
According to Fraser, volleyball was regarded with such an emphasis that she figured she wanted to play in college. But when she moved to London with her family for her sophomore year, the native of Orinda, Calif., quickly discovered that her primary sport did not carry the same influence in other parts of the globe, leading her to broaden her athletic horizons.
"I tried a volleyball camp [in London]," she said. "I just did not like it the same way, because volleyball is just not a big sport there at all. It was just so different playing the different style that they play there. I was like 'I can't do this here.' I did the same thing with lacrosse in London, but I just kind of thought I wanted to try a whole new thing, because a few of my friends at home were rowers."
In trying something new and relatively unfamiliar, Fraser was able to keep herself occupied during a unique chapter of her high school experience. However, it was difficult for the sophomore to gauge her own talent in rowing with how different the sport is in the UK.
"Rowing in England is very different from rowing in the U.S.," she said. "It's definitely a big adjustment. In England, everyone has been rowing since the fifth grade, so going there and starting when I was a sophomore in high school is kind of unheard of. That was kind of hard to adjust to because they didn't really know what to do with someone who was a novice at my age. I was just in London for a year, then I moved back to the U.S. and started rowing again. People said that maybe I could row at a university in the U.S. during my sophomore year, but I didn't really think that was true just because it was very different and you couldn't really compare the two when I was over there, so I didn't really think that was a reality until partway through my junior year.
"In the U.S., my coaches and program were a lot more formal, because in my sophomore year, it was only a couple times a week, not very competitive – I did not race and I only did it for a couple months. But when I got back to the U.S., the coaches were like 'You might have the potential to do this.'"
If Fraser's rowing career was born out of her looking to pick up a new hobby, Shunk's was a baptism by fire. In her sophomore year, many of her volleyball teammates decided to switch to rowing, leaving her isolated and missing time with her closest friends. When someone suggested that she make the transition as well, Shunk shot it down, recalling her initial thoughts when she went to a camp a few years earlier. Only this time, she didn't have much of a choice.
"A really good friend of mine, who now rows at Harvard, was like 'No worries, you should try rowing,'" Shunk said. "I was like 'I don't know, it wasn't for me and I tried it in seventh grade.' She was like 'No, you should.' I said maybe, just to shut her up, and she emailed the coach and told him that I was coming to try out."
After a two-week tryout period, she realized just how emotionally invested she had already becoming, saying, "I was so involved in it and I was like 'I really like this sport and I really like the people.'" And although her performance didn't initially carry over from her father's background, Shunk's disposition towards rowing mirrored Fraser's, in that the excitement of a new experience outweighed the talent she possessed in other sports.
"At the very beginning – the first month – it was a bit rough," she said. "You just don't know how to row at the very beginning. It was bad, but by the first four months, I wasn't that bad at it. Previously, my volleyball skills had plateaued, and it was exciting to be good at something again and to try something new. I also swam and it was a similar thing. I was just kind of the same as I always was at swimming. It was just exciting to try something new and be good at it and be surrounded by people that were really good at it."
Over the course of their junior years, Shunk and Fraser turned that excitement into developing a talent that garnered attention from NCAA programs. With Shunk competing for the Marin Rowing Association club team and Fraser becoming a member of the Oakland Strikes Rowing Club, both made appearances at the 2017 U.S. Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Fla. Following their junior campaigns, the two began taking serious looks at which universities around the country might offer them the best experience, both athletically and academically.
During the same time Shunk was trying to prioritize her options, Duke Associate Head Coach/Recruiting Director Chase Graham began a routine of contacting her after each race. According to her, Graham allowed her to talk about rowing rather than her recruitment process or decision timeline, something that helped the Blue Devils stand out, even if it was nearly 3,000 miles away from home.
"I think that definitely put Duke on my radar," Shunk said. "My Mom and I went online and took an online tour and my Mom was like 'This place is amazing – you have to go on this visit.' So, I went on my official visit and I really liked it. I loved the girls on the team. I felt like they were so nice and homey. I thought 'That's somewhere I could see myself.' It's really strong academically and athletics are a big focus of the school, and it seemed like they have a lot of fun. Those are some of the factors that led me to an official visit, and then on the official visit all of those things were definitely validated."
For Fraser, it took until the stages leading up to Nationals before she viewed Division I rowing as a serious possibility.
"I wasn't in a boat for regionals, and then when we were training for nationals as a team, I had something kind of come over me and I suddenly dropped a bunch of splits on the erg and seat my raced my way into the boat for nationals," she said. "Before that, I just wasn't really good and when I told Chase that I was going to nationals in this boat, that's when he really started talking to me."
After being offered an official visit that summer, Fraser had Duke stored in the back of her mind. However, her attention was held by the Ivy League schools, as her father, Drew, was a team captain for the Cornell football team. Fraser would visit multiple schools on the east coast, but a lingering interest made her decide to attend the Duke rowing camp in July. The decision would prove to be monumental in her rowing career, as she left the camp with little doubt of where she wanted to spend her collegiate years.
"It was kind of a random decision," Fraser said. "When I got to the Duke rowing camp, I had gone to a bunch of other schools before and they were all great, but I didn't really have that feeling that you have when you walk on a campus and you're like 'This is the place that I want to be at.' I thought 'This is the place I want to be. I feel great here and I feel like I belong.' It was interesting that I had that even though there was no one on campus because it was in the middle of the summer. It was really hot outside and I still kind of knew that I wanted to be there."
She added, "That was the only official visit I wanted to take because I wanted to commit right after."
Despite their paths crossing both personally and athletically throughout their youth, it wasn't until the fall of their senior year that Fraser and Shunk officially met. When Fraser was on her official visit to Duke, she was joined by a close friend of Shunk's, leading to the two of them connecting when they were both back in the Bay Area.
"We met up in San Francisco after that and immediately hit it off," Fraser said. "We didn't realize we knew each other through volleyball when we played volleyball. She looked familiar, and then we realized we were definitely at the same tournaments."
Rowing with their club teams, the pair would end up competing against one another throughout the entire spring. The two clubs remain traditionally strong within the Bay Area, and through their head-to-head battles during the season as well as at the Regional and National Championships, even Fraser had to admit that Shunk was crossing the finish line first more often than not. One race that stands out in both of their minds, however, was the season-opening Faultline Face-off in Orinda, when the result went to Fraser's squad.
"They destroyed us," Shunk said. "It was so embarrassing. Both of our teams traditionally do really well, but usually we're a little bit better. We go back and forth all the time – our two teams are so competitive with each other. We'll go one and two at regionals and then one and two at nationals. My coach actually had to change the lineup between races. She re-rigged the boat and changed the lineup. She was like 'I need to try anything to make this better.' I think that we developed throughout the season."
"My team won, then after that, her team beat us almost every race, but there were a couple ones that were close," Fraser said. "It was funny because we had met a few months before our spring season, and then after that we were almost in every single boat racing against each other. We've raced each other in eight's and four's."
Fortunately for the duo, and perhaps for the Duke program, no animosity was built during those races. Both Fraser and Shunk acknowledged that knowing one another helped make the transition to Duke that much easier when they arrived in the Fall of 2018. It might have been easier for Fraser, who has lived in multiple countries and had focused on east coast colleges, to adjust to the cultural differences in Durham, but Shunk quickly found many similarities to home that allowed her to become even more comfortable in her first few months on campus.
"I think Duke is definitely a bubble, which makes it a lot easier to transition," Shunk said. "Also, Duke's students are a lot like people from San Francisco. It's just very liberal and very accepting and loving on Duke's campus in general. Durham is very up and coming, and so I felt like Duke and Durham had a similar vibe to the greater Bay Area."
With both of them currently in California during what should be their sophomore campaign, it would be understandable for either to feel like they haven't had a thorough opportunity to reflect on their decision to join the Blue Devil family. However, the program's growth over the past year, both in results and as a collective unit off the water, keeps Fraser and Shunk assured that they will return to a culture that can't be found elsewhere.
"I knew how passionate the coaches were about achieving those goals and how much they would do to support us before coming to Duke, but I didn't really understand it until I got to Duke, seeing the true passion and care that they have for us," Fraser said. "I think being surrounded by this group of 50 women is probably the most inspiring thing I've ever been a part of because everyone adds so much value to everything. We can be so different, but we can all support each other in all the ways we need and I think everyone truly cares so much about each other."
"The seniors this year have worked so hard to build the team culture," Shunk added. "That's a really difficult thing, to start with fresh coaches and make the team what you want it. It is very sad that the season got cut short because we had a team culture that we never had before, where it was unconditional trust.
"My teammates are the most amazing people in the entire world. They are the kindest, most caring, amazing, intelligent people I've ever met, and bringing them all together on one team, I know I have 45 people I can text and say that I'm having a bad day and they would be there for me. I think that has exceeded my expectations. There's no way you could have predicted that."
#GoDuke
Although the 2020 spring season was cut short, both Fraser and Shunk have wasted little time in their Duke careers to become invaluable members of the program. In her freshman campaign, Fraser helped her respective boat finish first at the Carolina Cup and Lake Wheeler Invitational, while taking second at the Cooper Sprints and Big Ten/ACC Dual. Shunk, meanwhile, turned in one of the most decorated freshman seasons in program history. She was a part of two boats that earned ACC Crew of the Week recognition, helped the varsity-4 squad to a gold medal performance at the ACC Championship and was named the ACC Freshman of the Year, becoming the first Blue Devil to earn the honor since 2013. Shunk culminated her spring by finishing fifth at the NCAA Championships in the Petite Final – the highest finish for any boat in program history at the NCAA Championships.
With the early success shared by the two Californians, it would be natural to assume they were immersed in the sport at an early age. Yet while athletics played a predominant role in both of their lives, rowing did not find itself among their interests until their high school years, as the geographically popular volleyball had always kept their attention.
Even a familial influence wasn't enough at first to ignite a passion for Shunk, a Corte Madera native whose father, Kendrick, competed for the Stanford rowing program in college.
"He always wanted me to row," Shunk said. "I did a rowing camp in seventh grade and I hated it. Both Payton and I played competitive volleyball. Around here, that's a really big thing that people in late middle school and high school play, and so we both traveled and competed against each other."
According to Fraser, volleyball was regarded with such an emphasis that she figured she wanted to play in college. But when she moved to London with her family for her sophomore year, the native of Orinda, Calif., quickly discovered that her primary sport did not carry the same influence in other parts of the globe, leading her to broaden her athletic horizons.
"I tried a volleyball camp [in London]," she said. "I just did not like it the same way, because volleyball is just not a big sport there at all. It was just so different playing the different style that they play there. I was like 'I can't do this here.' I did the same thing with lacrosse in London, but I just kind of thought I wanted to try a whole new thing, because a few of my friends at home were rowers."
In trying something new and relatively unfamiliar, Fraser was able to keep herself occupied during a unique chapter of her high school experience. However, it was difficult for the sophomore to gauge her own talent in rowing with how different the sport is in the UK.
"Rowing in England is very different from rowing in the U.S.," she said. "It's definitely a big adjustment. In England, everyone has been rowing since the fifth grade, so going there and starting when I was a sophomore in high school is kind of unheard of. That was kind of hard to adjust to because they didn't really know what to do with someone who was a novice at my age. I was just in London for a year, then I moved back to the U.S. and started rowing again. People said that maybe I could row at a university in the U.S. during my sophomore year, but I didn't really think that was true just because it was very different and you couldn't really compare the two when I was over there, so I didn't really think that was a reality until partway through my junior year.
"In the U.S., my coaches and program were a lot more formal, because in my sophomore year, it was only a couple times a week, not very competitive – I did not race and I only did it for a couple months. But when I got back to the U.S., the coaches were like 'You might have the potential to do this.'"
If Fraser's rowing career was born out of her looking to pick up a new hobby, Shunk's was a baptism by fire. In her sophomore year, many of her volleyball teammates decided to switch to rowing, leaving her isolated and missing time with her closest friends. When someone suggested that she make the transition as well, Shunk shot it down, recalling her initial thoughts when she went to a camp a few years earlier. Only this time, she didn't have much of a choice.
"A really good friend of mine, who now rows at Harvard, was like 'No worries, you should try rowing,'" Shunk said. "I was like 'I don't know, it wasn't for me and I tried it in seventh grade.' She was like 'No, you should.' I said maybe, just to shut her up, and she emailed the coach and told him that I was coming to try out."
After a two-week tryout period, she realized just how emotionally invested she had already becoming, saying, "I was so involved in it and I was like 'I really like this sport and I really like the people.'" And although her performance didn't initially carry over from her father's background, Shunk's disposition towards rowing mirrored Fraser's, in that the excitement of a new experience outweighed the talent she possessed in other sports.
"At the very beginning – the first month – it was a bit rough," she said. "You just don't know how to row at the very beginning. It was bad, but by the first four months, I wasn't that bad at it. Previously, my volleyball skills had plateaued, and it was exciting to be good at something again and to try something new. I also swam and it was a similar thing. I was just kind of the same as I always was at swimming. It was just exciting to try something new and be good at it and be surrounded by people that were really good at it."
Over the course of their junior years, Shunk and Fraser turned that excitement into developing a talent that garnered attention from NCAA programs. With Shunk competing for the Marin Rowing Association club team and Fraser becoming a member of the Oakland Strikes Rowing Club, both made appearances at the 2017 U.S. Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Fla. Following their junior campaigns, the two began taking serious looks at which universities around the country might offer them the best experience, both athletically and academically.
During the same time Shunk was trying to prioritize her options, Duke Associate Head Coach/Recruiting Director Chase Graham began a routine of contacting her after each race. According to her, Graham allowed her to talk about rowing rather than her recruitment process or decision timeline, something that helped the Blue Devils stand out, even if it was nearly 3,000 miles away from home.
"I think that definitely put Duke on my radar," Shunk said. "My Mom and I went online and took an online tour and my Mom was like 'This place is amazing – you have to go on this visit.' So, I went on my official visit and I really liked it. I loved the girls on the team. I felt like they were so nice and homey. I thought 'That's somewhere I could see myself.' It's really strong academically and athletics are a big focus of the school, and it seemed like they have a lot of fun. Those are some of the factors that led me to an official visit, and then on the official visit all of those things were definitely validated."
For Fraser, it took until the stages leading up to Nationals before she viewed Division I rowing as a serious possibility.
"I wasn't in a boat for regionals, and then when we were training for nationals as a team, I had something kind of come over me and I suddenly dropped a bunch of splits on the erg and seat my raced my way into the boat for nationals," she said. "Before that, I just wasn't really good and when I told Chase that I was going to nationals in this boat, that's when he really started talking to me."
After being offered an official visit that summer, Fraser had Duke stored in the back of her mind. However, her attention was held by the Ivy League schools, as her father, Drew, was a team captain for the Cornell football team. Fraser would visit multiple schools on the east coast, but a lingering interest made her decide to attend the Duke rowing camp in July. The decision would prove to be monumental in her rowing career, as she left the camp with little doubt of where she wanted to spend her collegiate years.
"It was kind of a random decision," Fraser said. "When I got to the Duke rowing camp, I had gone to a bunch of other schools before and they were all great, but I didn't really have that feeling that you have when you walk on a campus and you're like 'This is the place that I want to be at.' I thought 'This is the place I want to be. I feel great here and I feel like I belong.' It was interesting that I had that even though there was no one on campus because it was in the middle of the summer. It was really hot outside and I still kind of knew that I wanted to be there."
She added, "That was the only official visit I wanted to take because I wanted to commit right after."
Despite their paths crossing both personally and athletically throughout their youth, it wasn't until the fall of their senior year that Fraser and Shunk officially met. When Fraser was on her official visit to Duke, she was joined by a close friend of Shunk's, leading to the two of them connecting when they were both back in the Bay Area.
"We met up in San Francisco after that and immediately hit it off," Fraser said. "We didn't realize we knew each other through volleyball when we played volleyball. She looked familiar, and then we realized we were definitely at the same tournaments."
Rowing with their club teams, the pair would end up competing against one another throughout the entire spring. The two clubs remain traditionally strong within the Bay Area, and through their head-to-head battles during the season as well as at the Regional and National Championships, even Fraser had to admit that Shunk was crossing the finish line first more often than not. One race that stands out in both of their minds, however, was the season-opening Faultline Face-off in Orinda, when the result went to Fraser's squad.
"They destroyed us," Shunk said. "It was so embarrassing. Both of our teams traditionally do really well, but usually we're a little bit better. We go back and forth all the time – our two teams are so competitive with each other. We'll go one and two at regionals and then one and two at nationals. My coach actually had to change the lineup between races. She re-rigged the boat and changed the lineup. She was like 'I need to try anything to make this better.' I think that we developed throughout the season."
"My team won, then after that, her team beat us almost every race, but there were a couple ones that were close," Fraser said. "It was funny because we had met a few months before our spring season, and then after that we were almost in every single boat racing against each other. We've raced each other in eight's and four's."
Fortunately for the duo, and perhaps for the Duke program, no animosity was built during those races. Both Fraser and Shunk acknowledged that knowing one another helped make the transition to Duke that much easier when they arrived in the Fall of 2018. It might have been easier for Fraser, who has lived in multiple countries and had focused on east coast colleges, to adjust to the cultural differences in Durham, but Shunk quickly found many similarities to home that allowed her to become even more comfortable in her first few months on campus.
"I think Duke is definitely a bubble, which makes it a lot easier to transition," Shunk said. "Also, Duke's students are a lot like people from San Francisco. It's just very liberal and very accepting and loving on Duke's campus in general. Durham is very up and coming, and so I felt like Duke and Durham had a similar vibe to the greater Bay Area."
With both of them currently in California during what should be their sophomore campaign, it would be understandable for either to feel like they haven't had a thorough opportunity to reflect on their decision to join the Blue Devil family. However, the program's growth over the past year, both in results and as a collective unit off the water, keeps Fraser and Shunk assured that they will return to a culture that can't be found elsewhere.
"I knew how passionate the coaches were about achieving those goals and how much they would do to support us before coming to Duke, but I didn't really understand it until I got to Duke, seeing the true passion and care that they have for us," Fraser said. "I think being surrounded by this group of 50 women is probably the most inspiring thing I've ever been a part of because everyone adds so much value to everything. We can be so different, but we can all support each other in all the ways we need and I think everyone truly cares so much about each other."
"The seniors this year have worked so hard to build the team culture," Shunk added. "That's a really difficult thing, to start with fresh coaches and make the team what you want it. It is very sad that the season got cut short because we had a team culture that we never had before, where it was unconditional trust.
"My teammates are the most amazing people in the entire world. They are the kindest, most caring, amazing, intelligent people I've ever met, and bringing them all together on one team, I know I have 45 people I can text and say that I'm having a bad day and they would be there for me. I think that has exceeded my expectations. There's no way you could have predicted that."
#GoDuke
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