COVER STORY
Stroke by
Amador senior Taylor Veit taking her
F
“When you cross the (finish) line,
it’s an amazing feeling. You’re so exhausted, but it’s a glorious feeling.” Taylor Veit, who will row for UCLA in the fall
Page 14ÊUÊFebruary 12, 2010ÊUÊPleasanton Weekly
or the majority of Amador Valley and Foothill seniors, life is pretty simple right now. It’s their final semester of high school, where school is mixed in with plenty of sleep, as well as a busy social calendar. They grudgingly get up for school each morning, but thoughts of sleeping in on the weekend are the carrot at the end of the motivational stick. Then there’s Amador senior Taylor Veit, who is far from your average senior and her weekly schedule — weekends included — would make the majority of teenagers in Pleasanton wince. In less than two years, Veit was taken the world of competitive rowing by storm, going from a complete novice to a person who’s earned a scholarship to the University of California, Los Angeles. And it’s taken a complete change of lifestyle, along with plenty of sacrifice. “I used to be a person who slept in, but not now. I’m an early bird,” Veit said. To be successful in any sport, obviously it takes a tremendous commitment, but rowing takes it to a whole other level. During the school week, Veit starts school at Amador at 7 a.m. each day, which means she’s up around 6 a.m. After getting out of school at 2 p.m., Veit rushes home to change, then heads out to Oakland where she trains with her club team, the Oakland Strokes. By the time practice is over, she finally gets back to Pleasanton around 7:30, where it’s time for dinner and homework. If everything goes according to plan, it’s lights out at 10 p.m. before she’s up early starting everything over again the next day. At least she’s got the weekends to relax, right? Wrong. On Saturday, practice starts at 6:45 a.m. and runs until 11 in the morning, followed by another practice Sunday morning. Once the season gets going, the weekends are full of competitions in places like San Diego, Long Beach, Sacramento and home on the Oakland Estuary. This is Veit’s schedule pretty much throughout the year. The typical teenage life of worrying about what happens next on “Jersey Shore” or some other teenflavored reality show get lost in the shuffle. Then again, it’s probably a good thing. “Being an athlete, you really have to be on top of things,” Veit said. “It’s all about being really organized and having a set schedule.” Getting started in rowing came about rather innocently for Veit. It was the summer before her junior year when her family went on vacation to Florida. While visiting an aunt in Florida who is a competitive rower in the Master’s division, Veit tried a rowing machine at the boathouse where her aunt’s club trains. The result was like a fish — or boat — taking to water. “After just a couple strokes, she told me I was a natural,” Veit said. “She told me I should take up rowing.” Once back from Florida, Veit enrolled in a rowing camp put on by the Strokes and she was hooked. “I really liked it,” explained Veit, who played soccer growing up, then tried volleyball in high school. “I liked the other sports I had played, but they weren’t the same as rowing. It was something different, but I felt it was the sport for me.”
Taylor Veit, in tiedyed shirt, rows with the Oakland Strokes. He for UCLA, a program which has won several national titles.
Initially, it was an even bigger commitment for Veit. She didn’t have her license when she began rowing for the Strokes junior program, so she took BART in each day. “My mom would pick me up after school and I would change clothes in the car on the way to BART station,” said Veit, laughing. Once she got off BART by Jack London Square in Oakland, she would run from the station down to the boathouse. When practice was over, she would run