Senior Spotlight: ABBY EKSTRAND

Hometown: Lombard, IL

Majors: Statistics and Environmental Science

Minor: Data Science

Port or Starboard: Bisweptual

Favorite seat in the boat: 6

How and why did you join Northwestern Crew?

My twin sister and I were watching the Olympics one year and we saw the Winklevoss twins in the pair and joked that we would go to Northwestern and row together. I don’t think we even knew Northwestern had a rowing team, and we didn’t know how to row, but that was our plan. Fast forward several years, I find myself at Northwestern and I remember what my sister and I joked about. There was a boy in my PA group [freshman year] who rowed at CRF in high school. He was like, "You're tall you should join." Then Lu [former team member] yelled “Tall girl!” at me on the streets and handed me flyers and then I joined. 

What was your first impression of the team and of the sport?

I remember meeting the varsity members when we were rowing on the ergs in SPAC for a week, and then there was a barbecue at Long Field afterwards. We went to the crew house, but no one else was there and it was super awkward. I thought [the varsity members] were kind of weird, but I liked it. That's the thing. We were at their house and one of the guys up there was like, you have to temper them, don't be too crazy, but I was like, you don't understand. I'm also crazy. 

What’s your favorite memory from being on the team?

I'd say one of my favorite memories was ACRA my freshman year. We didn't row well in the race itself, that’s not the highlight. But afterwards there was a little beach by the docks and my novice eight just hopped in the water in our unis. We were all swimming, having a good time. Everyone else on the team was kind of upset at this point, but we were done, we were all chilling. The men's novice four was rowing up to the start, and we were waving at them and yelling. It was a great time.

What’s the most difficult part of crew for you? What’s been your biggest struggle or difficulty on the team?

The entire past two years, sophomore year and junior year, it's really hard to motivate myself to get faster if I know I'm not gonna race. It was really lonely. I don't know if there's one specific moment where I was like, oh, I caught a crab in this race or something. I had many bad races but I'm not salty about them, I learned from them, but not being able to race at all was much worse.

What’s your favorite part of regattas?

I’m not really familiar with the rowing community outside of our little team here. So I really like to see other teams and represent Northwestern. In other sports, it's very easy to get a sense of community like, oh, I know this person plays soccer, this person plays basketball or whatever. But I don't really know anyone else who rows except for us, so it’s nice to interact with them and race fast. 

Do you have a favorite regatta memory?

My favorite racing memory was probably Head of the Charles this year, I'm very proud of how my boat did. There's one coxswain who was being rude at the start of the Charles. And in my head, I'm like, "She probably thought we're just some random crew who didn’t know how to row," and she was wrong. 

What’s been the most rewarding part of crew for you?

I like seeing how much better you can get when you put in the work quantitatively, seeing you're objectively faster than you were two months ago and you definitely rowed better. I like to see my hard work pay off. A lot of the things I do are not necessarily the same. I might study a bunch for a test and then I'll still fail it, but in rowing, if you show up to practice, do workouts to be faster, you'll be better and I like that. 

How would the team describe you?

I think I'd say I'm dramatic, which is fair. If I have to walk up the stairs after practice, the whole team has to know. If there’s a rock in my Croc during warmups, I have to stop, everyone has to know that a rock is in my Croc. 

What has crew taught you?

I'm capable of more than I think. Before I joined the team, the guy who was trying to recruit me was like, “Oh yeah, you can do it.” I was like, “No, you're crazy. That seems really hard and I'm uncoordinated.” Which is true, obviously at the beginning I was terrible. But now here I am. I can row.

What advice would you give to your novice self?

I'd just tell them to come to practice because it definitely pays off.