Keaton McAuliffe
Sports Editor
It had been a regular regatta weekend for senior Mary Campbell, until she found herself standing on the stage of the world’s most well-known rowing race with her hands held in the air and a first place medal around her neck.
On October 20th, Mary took first place at the Head of the Charles regatta, which took place in Cambridge, MA and hosted both national and international participants. She finished with a time of 21:34.82 minutes with her younger sister, freshman Claire Campbell, taking a notable second place with a time of 22:07.19.
“It’s pretty cool to win the Head of the Charles because it’s such a well known regatta,” Mary said. “You tell someone, even people that don’t know a lot about rowing, ‘I won the Head of the Charles’ and they kind of know what’s up.”
Although this race is the largest in the world, Mary said that she did not do anything differently to prepare. She kept up her normal workout routine, working out six days a week and doing double workouts on two of the days, balancing strength training with cardio.
Mary’s mental preparation also doesn’t change from race to race. “I try and not think,” she said. “I almost try and ‘unthink’ if that’s possible because if you think too much about something then you’ll psych yourself out.”
However, Mary admits that she often doesn’t need to think; she has people to do that for her, “Literally my dad does the thinking for me,” she said.“He really makes sure I get from point A to point B.”
Mr. Campbell isn’t the only family member that knows the ropes of crew. It was Mary’s family who encouraged her to even try the sport. “ The family was going in the same direction so I was like ‘Oh, I’ll just do middle school crew,’ Mary said of her rowing family, “and then all of a sudden I found a liking to it and it stemmed from there.”
“It’s also nice that the whole family does it because we get where everyone’s coming from and speak the same language when it comes to rowing,” Mary added.
With her recent Head of the Charles victory, Mary has secured her spot as one of the top female rowers in the country. The journey wasn’t always so smooth though, as Mary admits that she only just recently found her right state of mind for racing, “Last spring I kind of figured things out,” she said. “There comes a time when you kind of get your mindset right and get in the right zone. I learned to do that this spring and this summer so I was able for all the fall races, which is why I’ve done significantly better this year than in the past.”
Her improvements have earned her the title being one of the top five fastest girls in the nation. They have also helped her in the college recruitment process. Mary has officially committed to Brown University, “[The win] definitely got me more attention,” Mary said. “Coaches who had been talking to me for a while were coming back up to me right after the race and I was a little bit like ‘What?!’”
Going forward into the spring season, and onto the college team, Mary hopes to simply keep improving consistently. “Rowing is something that creates this challenge and is something that I can put all of my energy towards,” she said. “In the future my goals are to keep building upon this foundation that I have worked so hard on creating.”
Mary and her sister, Claire, were recently featured in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd in the November 4th issue. Their first and second place wins were highlighted as some of the top high school sports achievements in the nation that week. They follow in their footsteps of their older brother, Andrew Campbell, who was featured as a “Face in the Crowd” back in August after winning the World Rowing Championships.
