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