May the Schwartz be with you

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MADISON, Wis. — At first glance, Hannah Schwartz's journey to the Wisconsin women's rowing team might seem like an unusual one.

She wasn't recruited to row at UW, hadn't set foot in a racing shell before she came to Wisconsin, walked on as a freshman and in just one year earned a spot on the varsity eight boat, a spot she's held onto for three years.

Wisconsin wasn't even what the Milwaukee native had dreamt of for her college career. She initially had her sights set on the west coast and Seattle University. But after she toured Madison and learned about the academic programs she was interested in, she changed her mind.

"Now I can't really imagine having gone anywhere else," she said.

OK, so maybe her journey to anchoring a seat on the Badgers top boat wasn't that customary. But the women's rowing program under 12th-year head coach Bebe Bryans has had a history of turning walk-ons like Schwartz into some of its best rowers by the end of their careers.

The end of Schwartz's rowing career will come this weekend when Wisconsin races at the NCAA championships in Gold River, California, bringing with it a set of mixed emotions for the 2015 Second Team All-American.

"I wouldn't say it's a sense of urgency. It's more of just, I'm really excited. I'm really excited to see how much we have left," Schwartz said. "I don't think I've really processed that I'll completely be done yet because you put in so much work. It's a sport that's really hard to step down from."

Schwartz first stepped into the sport as a freshmen with a little bit of help from the Wisconsin coaching staff. She lived at Slichter Hall her first year on campus, no more than a few hundred feet away from Porter Boathouse on Babcock Drive.

The proximity to the rowing team's facility helped her get noticed.

"So there was one day the coaches saw me walking and since I'm kind of tall and have broad shoulders they were like, 'You should try out for the rowing team,'" Schwartz said.

"One of my friends had rowed in high school and rowed for Minnesota, so it was something I had been thinking about before. So I just decided to try out for a week, and then a week turned into a month and then a month turned into a year and then I just kept on doing it."

Schwartz quickly picked up the new sport, and by her sophomore year she was on the Badgers top boat that finished 17th that year at the 2014 NCAA Championships.

Although she excelled in a short period of time, the first two years on the team weren't easy by any means. Not only was she trying to adapt to a different sport after swimming for four years in high school, but she was also trying to adjust to the college scene in general.

"The first two years are really hard years just in terms of getting used to school and rowing, and I considered quitting so many times," Schwartz said. "But there was just something—every time I was really close to quitting, I could never actually go through with it just because I felt like I would be giving up something."

Staying with it has paid off in more ways than one for Schwartz, who has been a part of successes both on the water and in the classroom. Schwartz, an English and Legal Studies double major, is a two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree, while most recently helping UW to second place at the Big Ten Championships, its highest finish since 2010.

That success in both aspects of her life as a student-athlete shouldn't come as a surprise given her drive to succeed. That passion to compete is what landed her in rowing in the first place and has helped keep her in the sport .

"I've always been a competitive person, and I've always liked doing sports, which is what attracted me to rowing in the first place," Schwartz said. "And it's just a sport that directly rewards effort, so if you put the effort and the work into it, you're going to see results."

But in the grand scheme of rowing, it takes a team to truly achieve those results. In the case of the varsity eight, it takes Schwartz and the other eight members working as hard as they can in synchronization. Those results have been there for Wisconsin this year, including a win over No. 2 Cal in the first race of the season.

The good news is that the success hasn't just been limited to just the varsity eight boat for Wisconsin either. That depth carried the Badgers to that second-place finish at the Big Tens, giving them a solid dose of confidence heading into NCAAs.

"I think that this is the deepest team that we've had," Schwartz said. "We say that every year, but I really do think that this is the fastest team that I've been a part of and that's a really cool thing."

Schwartz has one final racing weekend to help Wisconsin prove that this is the fastest team she's been a part of, as the Badgers varsity eight tries to improve off a 13th-place finish from a year ago.

But in her final moments competing with Wisconsin, Schwartz appreciates that her individual accomplishments and her path to UW have had a lot to do with those around her.

"I'm just really proud of the work the team has put in this year. As much as being a senior you try to help people and help guide them, it's really my teammates that have pushed me to become faster and inspired me every day to go as hard as I can," Schwartz said. "Ultimately that's going to make a difference, that support."

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Hannah Schwartz

University of Wisconsin Athletics