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Duke Rowing Origins: Sabrina Sain & Olivia Von Stauffenberg
4/29/2020 5:02:00 PM | Rowing
DURHAM, N.C. – The Duke Rowing Origins continue this week with a look into how two team members with different backgrounds in the sport went from walking on to being key members of the Blue Devil family – freshman Sabrina Sain and sophomore Olivia Von Stauffenberg.
Although neither went through the traditional recruiting cycle during their high school years, both Sain and Von Stauffenberg relied on their versatile upbringings when navigating the uncertainty of walking on to a Division I team.
As a 19-year-old who has spent time living in London, India and Singapore, Sain is no stranger to new experiences. After giving up her childhood sport of soccer during her sophomore year at the Singapore American School, she knew that she wanted to find a way back into athletics, but rowing's lack of popularity in the country prevented her from ever exploring its possibility. So when she was looking into prospective colleges, it was not a rowing influence but rather her open-minded approach that put Duke at the top of her list.
"I was going on my college tours my junior year of high school," Sain said. "I honestly wasn't even looking at Duke. I was going to go check out Georgetown. My high school counselor was like 'You might as well visit. I think Duke would be a good fit for you.' I was kind of set on the northeast. She told me to check it out, and I was like 'Okay, if she's suggesting it.' I literally did it as one of the last stops. I added it into the college tours at the last minute, and out of all the schools I visited, I just fell in love with it. I didn't know much about it before I went, but I toured and it was the one school that I walked away from where I was like 'I have to go here.'"
After being accepted as a senior, Sain got to spend that spring looking ahead to the academic experience that is offered at Duke. It was then when a social media post caught her eye promoting incoming students to try out for the rowing team, and she recalls it staying in the back of her mind over the following months. Once again, it was her diverse range of environments that allowed her to develop a curiosity that grew into motivation.
"I finished my senior year and I was thinking about college and I was entering a new chapter of life and what not," she said. "I guess I just thought if there was any time to do something crazy and pick up a sport and become an athlete, it's now. Over the summer, I started to try and build up my fitness and was trying to use the erg."
While Sain was preparing to try rowing for the first time in Durham, Von Stauffenberg arrived on campus with a couple years' worth of knowledge and credentials. She began competing when she was 14, as the sport was a compulsory activity at her high school in London. The grounds of the Latymer Upper School, where she attended, are located on the River Thames, which she acknowledged made the sport easier and convenient as she found her passion for it. However, as her career was nearing its end, an injury put her rowing future in jeopardy and, according to her, in doubt.
"I didn't really want to row in college," Von Stauffenberg said. "I got injured in my senior year, so I didn't really think I wanted to row. I wasn't recruited or anything, but then I got better and at the end of that year, I came second at nationals and ended up making the team for the Junior World Championships. So, I couldn't stop. I'd put too much into it that I wanted to keep going."
With her dedication renewed, Von Stauffenberg said that her experience competing for England at the Junior World Championships both served as a culmination of her hard work in recovering from injury and exposed her to the global impact of the sport.
"It really made me see the sport in a different light," she said. "It made me enjoy it more as well. The racing was so much more intense and I knew that that intensity would carry on to college-level sport, so that's something I wanted to keep going with."
When Von Stauffenberg flew into Durham to visit for Blue Devil Days, she decided to reach out to Head Coach Megan Cooke Carcagno. Through seeing the team facilities and being put in contact with members of the current team as well as incoming recruiting class, Von Stauffenberg saw firsthand how close knit and committed to winning the program is. It took a few short weeks following her visit for her to decide to spend her college years at Duke.
When she got to campus in the fall of 2018, Von Stauffenberg was able to take advantage of having prior meetings with Cooke and Associate Head Coach Chase Graham, saying "We'd spoken so much by then that it already felt like I was part of the team." Although she had to adapt to one-oar sweeping after learning the ropes of rowing through sculling during her high school years, it didn't take very long for the walk-on to climb up the internal ranks. After racing in the first few meets in the 2V8 and 2V4 boats, Von Stauffenberg eventually found herself as a key piece of the varsity-4 squad. Alongside Rani Duff, Amelia Shunk, Anne Klok and Tara Christensen, she helped the boat capture gold at the ACC Championships for the first time in program history. With the taste of that victory, Von Stauffenberg feels that her drive for similar success is as strong as ever.
"I think that winning at ACC's proved to me that it's all worth it," she said. "You spend so many hours in the erg room and on the water every morning. It just shows how much you can do and shows me why I love this sport. Getting to represent Duke is amazing. The girls in our boat – we were two freshmen, a sophomore and a grad student, and the cox who is now a senior – now that we have this idea and memory, and having this year taken away from us, I definitely think that next year we will be ready to go."
While Von Stauffenberg hit the ground running in what turned out to be a dream freshman campaign, Sain arrived to tryouts this past September with her interest carrying the weight of her inexperience. And even with Assistant Coach Micah Boyd easing the process along so that Sain and others could pick up the fundamentals of the sport before the team began practicing, Sain quickly noticed just how much she had to learn.
"I walked in and I just didn't know anything about it at all," Sain said. "I remember the first day, I was like 'Oh, you sit backwards in the boat.' I had no idea."
Sain's neophyte status did not faze her, however. She recalled how much she enjoyed the structure, and how the aspect of learning every day grew more and more enticing as she developed her talent. After going through the tryout process until early November, Sain was a part of the roster, committed to a Division I program in a sport she had never tried just months earlier – a reality she had to recognize when she began practicing with the rest of the lifetime rowers.
"It was really intimidating. I was kind of like 'I don't know how they allow us to do this,'" she said. "It's cool, but it was also scary. Obviously, I didn't want to do anything wrong because everyone is so much more experienced than you."
That intimidation would be suppressed by the acceptance she felt from the upperclassmen, maintaining that their constant feedback and help made the transition easier.
"If we were in a boat with them, they would teach us technical things, and even if it was just sitting next to one of them on the erg, they would help correct my form and give me tips. Everyone was excited that we were there. I felt the community from really early on."
It's a similar communal nature that Von Stauffenberg picked up on and has immersed herself in over her first two years with the program. According to her, even the abundant roster found in U.S. college rowing does not disrupt the comradery that she found among her Blue Devil teammates.
"My high school team had five girls, but I'm just as close with the other 49 girls now as I was with the other four girls on my team," she said. "It's not even necessarily coach directed to make the effort. The seniors and captains do a really good job. We all have our groups we meet in. There's a really good chemistry, and it's the culture they've been working up years to build. It just works really well and they have a really good system of having everyone feeling at home with the team."
In just a few short months, Sain has noticed a similar bond among the group, no matter what class or rowing background each member comes from.
"I've gained a group of strong women that I know any one of them would do anything. If anyone ever needs anything, everyone has got their back. It's a support system on campus and it's a family. I've been on the team for not even a full year, but I still consider everyone on the team a friend and we get excited when we see each other on campus."
#GoDuke
Although neither went through the traditional recruiting cycle during their high school years, both Sain and Von Stauffenberg relied on their versatile upbringings when navigating the uncertainty of walking on to a Division I team.
As a 19-year-old who has spent time living in London, India and Singapore, Sain is no stranger to new experiences. After giving up her childhood sport of soccer during her sophomore year at the Singapore American School, she knew that she wanted to find a way back into athletics, but rowing's lack of popularity in the country prevented her from ever exploring its possibility. So when she was looking into prospective colleges, it was not a rowing influence but rather her open-minded approach that put Duke at the top of her list.
"I was going on my college tours my junior year of high school," Sain said. "I honestly wasn't even looking at Duke. I was going to go check out Georgetown. My high school counselor was like 'You might as well visit. I think Duke would be a good fit for you.' I was kind of set on the northeast. She told me to check it out, and I was like 'Okay, if she's suggesting it.' I literally did it as one of the last stops. I added it into the college tours at the last minute, and out of all the schools I visited, I just fell in love with it. I didn't know much about it before I went, but I toured and it was the one school that I walked away from where I was like 'I have to go here.'"
After being accepted as a senior, Sain got to spend that spring looking ahead to the academic experience that is offered at Duke. It was then when a social media post caught her eye promoting incoming students to try out for the rowing team, and she recalls it staying in the back of her mind over the following months. Once again, it was her diverse range of environments that allowed her to develop a curiosity that grew into motivation.
"I finished my senior year and I was thinking about college and I was entering a new chapter of life and what not," she said. "I guess I just thought if there was any time to do something crazy and pick up a sport and become an athlete, it's now. Over the summer, I started to try and build up my fitness and was trying to use the erg."
While Sain was preparing to try rowing for the first time in Durham, Von Stauffenberg arrived on campus with a couple years' worth of knowledge and credentials. She began competing when she was 14, as the sport was a compulsory activity at her high school in London. The grounds of the Latymer Upper School, where she attended, are located on the River Thames, which she acknowledged made the sport easier and convenient as she found her passion for it. However, as her career was nearing its end, an injury put her rowing future in jeopardy and, according to her, in doubt.
"I didn't really want to row in college," Von Stauffenberg said. "I got injured in my senior year, so I didn't really think I wanted to row. I wasn't recruited or anything, but then I got better and at the end of that year, I came second at nationals and ended up making the team for the Junior World Championships. So, I couldn't stop. I'd put too much into it that I wanted to keep going."
With her dedication renewed, Von Stauffenberg said that her experience competing for England at the Junior World Championships both served as a culmination of her hard work in recovering from injury and exposed her to the global impact of the sport.
"It really made me see the sport in a different light," she said. "It made me enjoy it more as well. The racing was so much more intense and I knew that that intensity would carry on to college-level sport, so that's something I wanted to keep going with."
When Von Stauffenberg flew into Durham to visit for Blue Devil Days, she decided to reach out to Head Coach Megan Cooke Carcagno. Through seeing the team facilities and being put in contact with members of the current team as well as incoming recruiting class, Von Stauffenberg saw firsthand how close knit and committed to winning the program is. It took a few short weeks following her visit for her to decide to spend her college years at Duke.
When she got to campus in the fall of 2018, Von Stauffenberg was able to take advantage of having prior meetings with Cooke and Associate Head Coach Chase Graham, saying "We'd spoken so much by then that it already felt like I was part of the team." Although she had to adapt to one-oar sweeping after learning the ropes of rowing through sculling during her high school years, it didn't take very long for the walk-on to climb up the internal ranks. After racing in the first few meets in the 2V8 and 2V4 boats, Von Stauffenberg eventually found herself as a key piece of the varsity-4 squad. Alongside Rani Duff, Amelia Shunk, Anne Klok and Tara Christensen, she helped the boat capture gold at the ACC Championships for the first time in program history. With the taste of that victory, Von Stauffenberg feels that her drive for similar success is as strong as ever.
"I think that winning at ACC's proved to me that it's all worth it," she said. "You spend so many hours in the erg room and on the water every morning. It just shows how much you can do and shows me why I love this sport. Getting to represent Duke is amazing. The girls in our boat – we were two freshmen, a sophomore and a grad student, and the cox who is now a senior – now that we have this idea and memory, and having this year taken away from us, I definitely think that next year we will be ready to go."
While Von Stauffenberg hit the ground running in what turned out to be a dream freshman campaign, Sain arrived to tryouts this past September with her interest carrying the weight of her inexperience. And even with Assistant Coach Micah Boyd easing the process along so that Sain and others could pick up the fundamentals of the sport before the team began practicing, Sain quickly noticed just how much she had to learn.
"I walked in and I just didn't know anything about it at all," Sain said. "I remember the first day, I was like 'Oh, you sit backwards in the boat.' I had no idea."
Sain's neophyte status did not faze her, however. She recalled how much she enjoyed the structure, and how the aspect of learning every day grew more and more enticing as she developed her talent. After going through the tryout process until early November, Sain was a part of the roster, committed to a Division I program in a sport she had never tried just months earlier – a reality she had to recognize when she began practicing with the rest of the lifetime rowers.
"It was really intimidating. I was kind of like 'I don't know how they allow us to do this,'" she said. "It's cool, but it was also scary. Obviously, I didn't want to do anything wrong because everyone is so much more experienced than you."
That intimidation would be suppressed by the acceptance she felt from the upperclassmen, maintaining that their constant feedback and help made the transition easier.
"If we were in a boat with them, they would teach us technical things, and even if it was just sitting next to one of them on the erg, they would help correct my form and give me tips. Everyone was excited that we were there. I felt the community from really early on."
It's a similar communal nature that Von Stauffenberg picked up on and has immersed herself in over her first two years with the program. According to her, even the abundant roster found in U.S. college rowing does not disrupt the comradery that she found among her Blue Devil teammates.
"My high school team had five girls, but I'm just as close with the other 49 girls now as I was with the other four girls on my team," she said. "It's not even necessarily coach directed to make the effort. The seniors and captains do a really good job. We all have our groups we meet in. There's a really good chemistry, and it's the culture they've been working up years to build. It just works really well and they have a really good system of having everyone feeling at home with the team."
In just a few short months, Sain has noticed a similar bond among the group, no matter what class or rowing background each member comes from.
"I've gained a group of strong women that I know any one of them would do anything. If anyone ever needs anything, everyone has got their back. It's a support system on campus and it's a family. I've been on the team for not even a full year, but I still consider everyone on the team a friend and we get excited when we see each other on campus."
#GoDuke
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