n Daily - Thursday, April 10, 1997 - 15A
Rower Stawski finds success after
dropping basketball, picking up oar
By Fred Link
Daily Sports Writer
Four years ago, Jeannette Stawski was
a freshman basketball player at Boston
College.
And she was miserable. After only a
ew weeks, she quit the team.
Shortly after giving up on her basket-
ball career, Stawski's brother took her to
the Head of the Charles regatta, one of
the most prestigious rowing events in the
world.
"That was the first time that I'd ever
seen a boat,' said the 6-foot-2 Stawski.
"They looked very fragile and very
small, and I thought I was way too big to
" B.C.'s crew team.
Despite her initial reservations,
Stawski decided to give rowing a try. She
called the crew coach and joined the
rowing team at the end of the fall season.
Things still weren't going well, and
after only one semester, she decided to
leave Boston College and transfer to
Michigan, where she joined the novice
crew team.
Stawski's switch to crew was not
}nmediately successful. Her freshman
season was horrible.
"I was the worst rower on the novice
team," Stawski said. "I was horrendous,
terrible."
Even though rowing wasn't going as
well as she had hoped, Stawski was
happy. She was enjoying college. She
was making friends. She loved Ann
Arbor.
But, after the season ended, she was
diagnosed with Graves disease.
"Basically, what I had was an overac-
tive thyroid," Stawski said. "My neck
was completely swollen. It looked like I
had swallowed a softball."
During the summer, Stawski had her
thyroid removed. As a result of the
surgery, she didn't train at all until she
returned to practice in the fall.
"I came back to crew that fall all wor-
ried that I hadn't worked out all sum-
mer" Stawski said. "I was pulling my
first erg piece, and I beat half of the
men's team. I had just become this won-
der-rower"
Over the course of one summer,
Stawski had gone from the worst rower
on the team to breaking team records.
"All of a sudden, my body was work-
ing normally," Stawski said. "I'd lost
probably 30 pounds by that time, and
everything was just falling into place."
Stawski was so good that she started
to get noticed on the national level. Her
times on the ergometer placed her in the
top 20 in the nation. Last summer, she
was invited to pre-elite camp, a step
below the national team.
This fall, she attended another presti-
gious national rowing camp. She ended
up pulling the eighth-fastest time in the
nation and the fourth-fastest amongst
collegiate rowers.
With her fall ergometer times, Stawski
has a real chance of making the national
team this summer, but she has decided to
stay in school for her final year of eligi-
bility
"I could try out for the national team,
but I also have another year of eligibility
here that I've decided to stay for,"
Stawski said. "My goal is just to train
really hard and to see how well and how
far we can go with Michigan rowing,
and then I'm going to pursue rowing full
time until" the 2000 Olympics.
Pinstriped
a2 sophomore
° center Robert
x Traylor had rea-
son to smile at
ist night's 36th
Annual
-asketball Bust.
tie was the only
:multlpie award
*rcIplent, taking
j;ome the Thad
Gamer
Leadership Award
and the Loy
Vaught
Rebounding
Award as well as
sharing the Bill
Buntin Most
Valuable Player
ard with guard
Louis Bullock.
WARfGARET MYERS/Daily
Florida State President offers M'
unique form of congratulations
By Will McCahill
Daily Sports Editor
If you read The Michigan Daily yes-
terday, you may have noticed a rather
peculiar ad on Page 3. With a picture of
the Manhattan skyline filling the lower
half of the frame, the text read "Florida
State University congratulates University
of Michigan Wolverines on their victory
in the finals of the National Invitational
Tournament?'
-And then in smaller type at the bottom
of the page, beneath the view of New
-York: "If you can make it there, you can
make it anywhere."
Those who follow the Michigan men's
basketball team will recall that the
Wolverines won the NIT - played at
Madison Square Garden in the Big Apple
- on March 27.
Their opponent in the title game?
None other than Florida State.
Congratulations usually flow freely
and from many sources after such con-
tests, but are normally limited to locker-
rooms and media gatherings following
the game. So why the ad?
Frank Murphy, of Florida State's
media relations department, said the pur-
BUST
Continued from Page 13A
freshman Peter Vignier becoming acade-
mically ineligible during his first semes-
ter, because Vignier is in the Residential
College and doesn't get letter grades.
"The guy is a straight-A student, and
they're not giving him grades," Fisher
pose of the ad was indeed to give the
Wolverines their due.
"We think it's in good taste to con-
gratulate the victors," Murphy said.
"Particularly in national events like the
NIT."
He said the idea of placing such adver-
tisements came not from anywhere in the
Seminoles' athletic establishment, but
from Florida State President Sandy
D'Alemberte.
The university placed a similar ad in a
Gainesville, Fla., newspaper after
Florida's football team defeated the
Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2 to
capture the national title.
And what of the ad's last line?
"We meant it in the best way" said
Murphy, who did not follow the
Wolverines this season, and had no idea
that many fans regard Michigan's season
as a disappointment, despite the NIT
championship.
Rather, Murphy said the line pointed
toward a possible future matchup
between the two basketball teams.
"Hopefully we'll meet somewhere
down the line," he said.
"Maybe in the Final Four."
Florida State University
congratulates
University of Michigan
WOLVERINES
on their victory in the finals of the
National
Invitational
Tournament
At the encouragement of Florida State
President Sandy D'Alemberte, the uni-
versity's media relations department
placed this ad in yesterday's Daily con-
gratulating Michigan on its NIT title.
lamented.
In addition to the awards for Traylor
and Bullock, several other Wolverines
walked out of Crisler with some shiny
hardware.
Junior guard Travis Conlan took home
the Wayman Britt Defensive Player
Award for the second consecutive sea-
son, while his backcourt mate and fellow
junior Brandun Hughes shared the Steve
Grote Hustler Award with DeKuiper.
Traylor snagged a couple other tro-
phies to complement his MVP award,
grabbing the Thad Garner Leadership
Award and the Loy Vaught
Rebounding Award, the latter earned
by pulling down a team-leading 7.7
boards per game.
1i
J