Stroke by stroke

It was by a stroke of luck that Linda Pazdalski, CHS ’85, got her start in rowing nearly two years ago, and now she can’t imagine her life without the sport.

It was always Pazdalski’s daughter, Ashley, AG ’10, who was the rower in the family. Ashley rowed in high school and as she got more competitive in the sport, she joined the Baltimore Rowing Club to work with more experienced rowers.

Established in 1979, the Baltimore Rowing Club is steeped in history and draws oarsmen and women of all ages and skill levels, including a large group of UD alumni.

“She used to get up and practice at terrible hours like 4 a.m., but that was her commitment, not mine,” Pazdalski says. “I would rather have been at home under a down comforter.”

But, Linda would drive her to practice, since Ashley was still too young to drive herself. Each morning, she would sit in the boathouse and read a book while her daughter was on the water.

“I got started by accident,” she says. “Ashley was in a beginners class of adults, and one participant did not show up that morning. They need eight people to power the boat and they only had seven. The coach saw me sitting there and asked me who I was and then said, ‘Get in the boat. I need you to row.’”

Her mother’s first day out “was interesting, to say the least,” says Ashley, now also a member of the UD women’s rowing team. “She wasn’t even supposed to be there. She had just come with me to make sure that I found my coach safely, and he ended up coercing her into rowing.”

 After unsuccessfully explaining to the coach that she did not know how to row, nor did she have an urge to learn, Linda climbed in the boat, with her daughter at the helm as the coxswain, a leadership position in the boat. The cox’s job is to give direction to make sure the boat goes straight, and Ashley, she says, is perfectly suited for the role with her assertive personality.

“So I got in, but it was a rocky start,” she explains. “I hadn’t paid much attention to the details of the sport, so when I was placed in the boat, I didn’t know what that position
was called.

“Ashley called out, ‘Bow, take a stroke.’ And I just sat there. Again, she said it, firmer this time, and I just sat there,” Linda says. Ashley has a strict rule prohibiting talking in her boat, her mother explains. But as the group sat still on the water, Linda was getting irritated that nothing was happening.

“Finally, I leaned up to the woman in front of me and said, ‘I really wish this person would pay attention and take a stroke so we can all get going.’ At that point, I heard Ashley shout, ‘Mom, take a stroke!’

“So, once I realized who I was, we got moving. I went out a few more times as they needed me to fill in, and it was kind of fun, but it was just recreation at that point,” she says.

Once her feet got wet again in the competitive environment, Linda became more driven to learn. While she had played softball in high school, she skipped participating in organized sports at UD so she could concentrate on her nursing studies. She then began her career and raised her family.

“But, the athletics part of me missed the competition,” she says. “There gets to be a point in your life when you settle into your job and your duties and you get into a routine. I was ready for another challenge. As I paddled around for a few years, I began to wonder how good I could be at it if I tried.”

So, she began training during the winter and started taking other lessons at the club in the mornings before work and sometimes after work as well. She has now progressed to be part of a four-woman sculling team.

Despite her mom’s slow start, Ashley says she wasn’t surprised when her mother said she wanted to get more involved in the sport.

“Even when she didn’t consider herself all that competitive, I knew she could do it,” she says.

In July, her mother’s team placed second at the Independence Day Regatta on the Schuylkill River. It was their first race out of state.

“It’s a great team atmosphere at the club,” Linda says. “Everyone cheers each other on to do their best. It’s not always about coming in first. It could be about beating your previous times or making progress.”

Linda says she feels rowing has re-energized her life, especially in light of her work as the Stroke Program Coordinator at Sinai Hospital Brain and Spine Institute.

“I see so many young disabled patients, and it happens suddenly and out of nowhere,” she says. “You’ve got to do what you can when you still can because you never know what might happen.”

—Laura Overturf Stetser, AS ’99