Shell Game : Loyola Rowers Good Bet for 2nd Win in National

Finding people to fill shells isn’t always easy for Loyola Marymount women’s crew Coach Lori Pawinski. But when she gets them, through word of mouth and by circulating flyers during the first week of school, the inexperienced volunteers dedicate themselves to the sport.

“It’s like teaching people to ride a bike,” Pawinski said. “I get a lot of raw talent. Most of them come out here and don’t have any experience whatsoever.”

But they work endlessly to perfect a sport that offers no scholarships and requires 10 months of training a year.

Every day at the crack of dawn, Pawinski and her group of rowers are wide awake, energetic and ready for action. They take a shell from the small, red shell house that floats at the tip of Marina del Rey’s Fisherman’s Village, and gently set it on the chilly water.

Then Pawinski hops into a small white motorboat that she uses to cruise through the choppy water while trailing her athletes. From it she yells instructions and inspirational phrases through a white megaphone. Her rowers, meanwhile, row intensely through the nippy early morning breeze while chanting drills and breathing heavily.

The demanding daily routine, though difficult and grueling, has been well worth it for the Lions, who will compete in the four-woman lightweight nationals (each rower must weigh under 130 pounds) today at Lake Wingra in Madison, Wis.

If Loyola wins, it will be its second national women’s title since the inception of the program in 1976. In 1981, Coach Mike Priest led the Lions to the championship.

Pawinski, a rower at Loyola from 1982 to 1985, says this group can duplicate that feat. At the Pacific Coast Rowing Regatta in Sacramento on May 14, the Lions’ eight-member lightweight shell (7:37) placed second to Washington State (7:36) on the 2,000-meter course.

This season Loyola beat UC San Diego in a dual meet and Cal State Long Beach’s heavyweight team. The Lions also won the States School Championships in March, which includes the nation’s top small schools.

“We don’t just want to be a mediocre program anymore,” said Pawinski, who is a science teacher at St. Bernard High. “I want to make it a great program.”

And in hopes of winning her first national title, the second-year coach took the best and most experienced rowers from her lightweight eight shell and entered a four-woman lightweight crew in the nationals.

Last year Loyola’s eight-woman shell placed first at the Pacific Coast Regatta and third at nationals which were held in Pennsylvania. The Lions’ lightweight four also won the Small Schools Regatta last year.

“This group is exceptional,” Pawinski said of her four top athletes. “They’re very talented and extremely motivated. They’re also great technicians. We’ve only raced eight all season, but I think this particular group can be very strong.”

The four seniors include bow Mary Huffman, Katie Burke, Kellie Farely, Julie Hackworth and sophomore Coxswain Jessica Perez. All except Hackworth are four-year members of the Loyola crew.

Hackworth, a stroker, joined the team as a sophomore. This season the 21-year-old psychology major was chosen for a U.S. national development camp, which starts in August at Lake Placid, N.Y.

The former high school runner and field hockey player decided to try crew during her freshman year at Loyola when she watched a friend in a race.

“I thought, ‘If they can do it, so can I,’ ” Hackworth said. “And it’s not easy. It’s a lot of hard work, and sometimes you feel like you’re missing out because you can’t drink and you can’t ever stay out late. I’ve thought of quitting, but something just keeps you going.”

Other team members say rowing is addicting. Despite its great physical demands, they claim it’s difficult to stop once involved with the sport.

“I don’t know what it is,” said Huffman, a biology major, “but something just keeps us coming back. It gets to a point where all you want to do is row.”