This year, Keira Hale (‘25) went from the seventh best 2k to third overall in Skyline Crew history. 2k’s are a 2000 meter race, which is the most common distance for races in rowing. Next year, Hale will row at Brown, one of the top colleges for rowing in the US, as Skyline Crew’s first female Ivy-bound rower.
“I talked to like a lot of schools before I chose Brown,” Hale says. “But my coach, Kate Wright, she was like, you give the vibe that you would go to Brown. So I reached out to them and that’s when I decided.”
After applying Hale says that she “got a likely letter. And a likely letter basically tells you, before admission comes out, that you’re gonna get in. So, I did expect to get in, but I had self doubt, because I didn’t want people to be like, you’re gonna get in and for me not to get in.”
Hale has rowed since the sixth grade and has done every season since. She has also done rowing camps over every summer.
“Freshman summer, I did Henley camp at home,” Hale says. Canadian Henley is an elite rowing camp run by Washtenaw Rowing Center, a program closely related to Skyline Crew, for college and pre collegiate rowers. “Sophomore summer, I also did Henley camp again. And then this third summer, I did Ready Set Row.”
Though Hale doesn’t plan on rowing after college, she’s known for a while that she wanted to continue rowing while she’s in college.
“I knew I wanted to row in college after I PR’d on my 2k by 19 seconds,” Hale says. “So like, I went from, like the 7:50s and then I went to a 7:34 and that’s when I knew that I could be recruited.”
Hale’s favorite event to row is the eight, meaning eight people in a boat, each with one oar.
“I think the eight is the most challenging, because there’s the most amount of people in it, so there’s gonna be variety and speed, but you still have to have the same mindset with the same amount of people. So I really enjoy the challenge of the eight.”
Hale believes that to be successful, you need to always show up and have people who support you.
“Just show up every day,” sale Hale. “If you train every day, then you’ll be good. And train with purpose, like you want to hit the splits [a common rowing measurement]. And it’s sometimes hard to be in a really competitive atmosphere, and can seem a little dehumanizing sometimes, but also understand, like, you can get through it, and there are people supporting you and looking up to you, and a lot of people who will, at the end of the day, support you.”
