High school senior recruited to row for Syracuse University

Text by Kelly Kandra Hughes
Photo Courtesy of Syracuse University

Norfolk’s Olivia Olsen has spent her whole life swimming. Now a high school senior she had planned to swim competitively in college, and the SwimCloud coaching platform has her ranked 82nd in Connecticut in terms of recruitment. Yet when Olsen starts at Syracuse University next fall, she will not be joining their swim team. Instead, she will be a varsity member of the Syracuse crew team.

“It all happened so quickly,” says Olsen. “It’s not something I expected. I wasn’t even planning on rowing.” Late last winter, Olsen had expressed an interest to her parents in being on a crew team. But by the time she finished swimming in the 2022 state championships in March, she didn’t want to try anything new. “I just wanted to take a break,” she remembers. “I had been super busy.”

Her mother convinced her to give it a try anyway. She had found the Litchfield Hills Rowing Club and had been in touch with the coach. “I didn’t want Olivia to miss out on something she had expressed some interest in. I encouraged her to meet the coach and team and just check it out. She was invited to get in a boat during that first practice and she was hooked.”

“I really liked it,” says Olsen. “It was refreshing. I kept going and going.” In the summer of 2022, Olsen reached out to Syracuse because she was interested in the school. She told them she was a swimmer and that she had done a little bit of rowing. Her official NCAA visit in the fall turned into a verbal commitment to row varsity crew. “The crew coaches suggested I have a lot of potential based on my sports and athletic background,” she says.

Olsen is looking forward to being on a team that will push her to be more competitive and to help her improve in her new favorite sport. She’s also excited to learn more about rowing, especially from collegiate athletes with the same focus and motivation, noting that “You can count on people showing up, being supportive and staying on track. We have the same goals and the same attitudes.”

As for the town of Syracuse itself, Olsen laughs that “living in Norfolk is a good place to be in terms of preparing for cold and snow.” She likes that while the university itself feels big, the town has a nice, cozy feeling. “I’ll probably miss Norfolk in the sense that everybody knows you,” she says. “I think once I get away from it, I’ll be one person in this huge crowd. I’ll miss the close-knit community feeling.”

Olsen doesn’t think she’ll miss swimming, though. She’s finishing her season now, and then she’ll be done. “I haven’t been rowing for that long, so it feels like a fresh start. Last year, I was feeling burned out. If I continued swimming through college, I think I would get tired of it. I’m ready for a new chapter and a new step.”