How Two Girls Introduced Rowing to BHS

Published December 12, 2014

Michele Holtkamp and Eden Norris fell in love with the sport of rowing last year and wanted to share that love with the Brentwood High School student body. What better way to do that then to start a rowing club at Brentwood High School.

“Eden and I talked about starting this club close to a year ago,” said Michele. “Our main goal is to introduce Brentwood students to a sport that was previously not very common in Nashville but has grown tremendously in the last year. We want to encourage students to live an active lifestyle by engaging themselves in this great sport and do so in the team’s friendly and welcoming atmosphere.”

The founding of the club required a lot of different steps, from gauging interest in the sport with fellow students to finding a teacher to sponsor the club. French teacher Amy Pigott volunteered for the position. From there, the girls wrote up a rowing club proposal to present to Principal Kevin Keidel for approval.

During the first meeting, Nashville Rowing Coaches Cory Sanderson and Eric Gehrke were invited to BHS to continue to spread the word and share about the Nashville Rowing Club.

“Michele and Eden took it upon themselves to start a school club as a way to get more BHS students involved,” said Sanderson. “The goal was really to give more students an opportunity to hear what rowing and specifically Nashville Rowing, is all about and ultimately get them out to the lake so that they could have a chance to get in a boat.”

The team has three seasons. The fall is the developmental season, where the focus is less on racing and more on the process of showing up daily to improve and expand skills as rowers. The winter training season is mostly on land due to weather. Dry land training includes weight racks, bumper plates and spine bikes. The spring is the competitive season where many races between March and June culminate with Southeast Regionals and if all goes well, Nationals. Eden says the hard work is completely worth the effort.

“We want to share this amazing and relatively unknown sport in the south with others,” said Eden. “We want people to be influenced by the sport that has changed both of our lives.”

BHs Rowing editedMichele and Eden are still encouraging students at BHS, and other schools around the community, to give rowing a try.

“Always be willing to try something new,” said Eden. “Once you open the door to new experiences, your life will change for the better.”

Michele agrees.

“For those on the fence about joining the club, I’d say don’t count it out until you try it,” Michele said. “It may sound cliché, but a lot of people don’t realize the amazing opportunities that come from a sport like rowing and being on a team like Nashville. The most accurate way to describe the team is family. The bond that the team shares goes beyond practices, and we are constantly spending more time together to get to know each other outside of practice.”

The girls are also eyeing the future collegiate opportunities this sport can bring to them.

“Many colleges are beginning rowing programs and crew is the number one athletic scholarship awarding sport in the country,” said Eden. “Close to 50 percent of girls rowing on a high school team get a college scholarship.”

The morale of the story: don’t be afraid to try something new – the relationships you build and the skills you gain are worth the step into unknown territory. And you just might help grow a sport in the process.

“For Michele and Eden, and all of the rowers of the Nashville Rowing family, their legacy won’t be the medals they win, it will be the people they introduce to the sport that they have grown to love,” said Sanderson. “The kids on our team are and will always be our best ambassadors, and it speaks to all of their passion that the team has grown from about 30 athletes at this time last winter, to 60-plus with our middle school team.”