Growing through Rowing: Junior Ella Heide participates on a competitive rowing team and hopes to commit to the sport in college

There’s nothing more exhilarating for junior Ella Heide than using her last ounce of energy to make one more paddle, passing the boat next to hers and finally knowing that the countless nights spent at home on the rowing machine paid off.

Heide has always been surrounded by rowing, as both of her parents were part of a recreational rowing team in the past — this made having a rowing machine in their home a necessity. It wasn’t until sophomore year that Heide’s mom suggested she join a local rowing club. Heide’s success in other sports such as volleyball and basketball led her mom to believe she would be able to pick up the sport quickly.

“[My parents] thought it was a lot of fun, and then my mom was like ‘you’re tall, you’d be good at it,’ so it was kind of floating around that maybe I should try it,” Heide said.

After not having a fall sport her sophomore year, Heide’s training at the Kansas City Boat Club (KCBC) began during the fall athletic season. Her free time allowed her to take the next step and begin competitively training through erging — rowing on a machine that measures work exerted. 

Although only starting a little over a year ago, Heide has talked with universities and plans to commit to a college for rowing next year — a goal she hopes to reach by continuing her two-hour practices four times a week as well as rowing competitions.

“It’s mostly steady state rowing but sometimes [my coach] will have us do technique or do a couple sprint pieces, but we usually just row up and turn around,” Heide said.

The main factor that most prestigious colleges look at when scouting rowers is the 2,000 meter (about one and a quarter mile) time, which according to Heide, is around seven and a half minutes for the D1 schools in the northeast that she’s hoping will recruit her.

Heide is confident that she’ll be able to reach that approximate seven-and-a-half minute benchmark by the end of spring season.

“My time’s at just under eight minutes right now, so hopefully by the end of the school year I’ll get it in good shape to get recruited,” Heide said. 

Many of Heide’s club practices revolve around aiming to lower the amount of time it takes to row 2,000 meters. This is done by improving her strokes, along with strengthening her overall form and approach to result in the most effective and efficient time. In addition to practices, Heide spends time at home rowing on her personal machine to help her drop time. 

Also playing on the East JV basketball team, Heide has struggled to make time to keep up with training while balancing other academic and extracurricular pursuits. 

“It’s obviously hectic playing basketball, so I fall in and out of consistency with being able to erg six days a week, but I’m trying to get [my time] down,” Heide said.

Heide’s coach at KCBC Phil Donnellan has seen the work she puts in and out of practice. Donnellan helps her with techniques and form during practice in order to help her improve her time and prepare her for the college scouting process. 

“Ella picked it up pretty well, pretty quickly and progressed well technique-wise,” Donnellan said. “Ella started as a sophomore [and] that’s plenty early enough to row in college.”

Along with the support of her coach, Heide’s family has played an important role in her commitment to rowing. Heide’s sister and East senior Anna Heide has witnessed Ella’s dedication and drive toward the sport throughout the past year.

“She’s been working really hard, there are times when she’s like rowing until midnight repeatedly to try and get that time,” Anna said. “She’s a lot more motivated than I ever really could’ve expected her to be.”

In addition to seeing her sister’s practices and training through the winter and spring season, Anna also describes her sister’s effort during lockdown, when she was unable to row on the water. 

“It was a big part of her quarantine as well because since we couldn’t go anywhere she was on the rowing machine like every day,” Anna said.

Despite the season being altered and adjusting to training methods, Heide always looks forward to her time on the water and the experiences she’s had with the team.

“It’s calming when you’re on the water just doing the same thing over and over,” Heide said.

“If we row far enough one direction, we can see the Kansas City skyline, [so] it’s just little things like that.”