Team: Women’s crew

Abby Murphy ’25

Hometown: Arlington, Va.

Major: English and political science

Isabel Mikheev ’25

Hometown: Norwich, Vt.

Major: Math and economics

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Arleny Flores (AF): When did you both start rowing?

Isabel Mikheev (IM): I started rowing my freshman year of high school, but I’ve had time off since then from COVID-19 and a gap year.

Abby Murphy (AM): I started rowing during my freshman year of college. 

AF: What made you decide to row at the College? 

AM: Well, I was actually going to run cross country here, but I had a time trial my first week of college in order to try to make the team, and it was maybe the worst athletic performance I’ve ever had. I just felt like my head wasn’t really in it. I no longer felt like running was giving me the joy that it used to, but I love sports and love being on a team. The crew meeting was at the track after my time trial, and one of my best friends was sitting there. She called me over, and I was sitting in this meeting, about to start sobbing, listening to the assistant coach for the crew team explain the sport to us. And I was like “this sounds fun,” and my siblings had rowed before, so I showed up to practice on the first day. 

IM: I had a coach in high school who was amazing. He gave me my whole “why” for rowing and transformed the way that I view the sport and interact with it. He went to Williams, so when it came time to start looking at colleges, it was just a natural school to have on my radar. I was like, “Okay, someone who I really look up to rowed at Williams.” And he was a math teacher, and I wanted to major in math, so it aligned with everything that I wanted.

AF: What is your favorite part of the sport? 

AM: There’s this feeling while rowing when there’s no thought except each individual stroke at a time. All you can think about at that moment is that one stroke. The boat is gliding, and you’re pushing so hard, and it hurts, but the only thought is, “Okay, we’re moving, and that’s crazy.”

IM: It’s really special when all eight people are moving together. It’s so calm, but you can hear this trickling and bubbling underneath the boat, and you’re on this beautiful lake with eight of your friends. Obviously, racing in big races and winning is so exciting and a huge part of why we do the sport, but we only race six times in the spring, so those moments are rare. It’s really the day-to-day being together on the water, with the mountains surrounding you. Pushing your limits together, and pushing your limits because of everyone else who is pushing with you is special.

AF: Do you have a favorite team memory? 

IM: One race that really stood out to me was this fall at the Head of the Charles. It’s this huge race that has hundreds of thousands of spectators and you get to see all your high school friends and other friends who row. Basically every school comes to this race, and the energy is electric. I was abroad during my junior year, but I raced there my freshman and sophomore year. We had set out to do super well and we kind of fell short on that. This [year] was the last run at the race for me. Coming down the course was just magical. There are a few bridges you go under, and every time you go under a bridge, there’s a moment when things get really, really quiet, except the coxswain’s voice echoing. There’s a moment of peace and the water is a bit calmer. Then, you come out from under the bridge and there’s just this massive roar from the crowd. Especially the last bridge of the race — often our alums will stand along the edge of the bridge. And you’re not supposed to look out of the boat, but I looked up for a second and I could see all the people I had rowed with over the past three years cheering us on. That moment was really full circle for me.

AM: Sophomore year was my first time at NCAAs and I was in the second varsity boat. We had an up-and-down season, and by the end we’d really rallied behind this identity of being dogs. And we got a new boat and we named it Maverick after the movie Top Gun, but it also sounds like a dog. We got a new coach that year, Paula Thoms, and she really worked on bringing the team together in a way that it hadn’t been before, and also raising the standard of what we wanted to achieve. For our boat, she would always yell, “Don’t think, just do,” and that was where the Top Gun reference came from. There was this mentality of, “We don’t know how the race is gonna go, but we’re gonna work really hard together to make a fast boat.” By the time we got to NCAAs, I was like, “I do not know how I ended up at such a big event.” Div. I teams are there, too, and I had learned to row the year before. And then we ended up getting third in our race, and it felt like the beginning of a team culture arc that we’re still working on, but also one that has really developed in our time. I’m really proud of that sophomore race, dialing in and finding a new reason to succeed that we’re still using today. 

AF: How has the team evolved over your past four years at the College? 

AM: We entered the team with an interim coach, Carolyn Miles, who’s the deputy athletic director. She’s a great person and did amazing things for us but was a temporary coach. Getting Paula sophomore year was amazing because she came with a lot of experience and also a really resolute, calm attitude looking long-term. She came in with a lot of performance goals for us, but also wanted to have a team that worked together and showed up every day to achieve the best possible result. Both in terms of performance on the water, and in terms of team culture. I came on to the team not knowing that I would stay on the team, and now it’s one of the most important things in my life. I think that’s really only possible because of what Paula has done. 

IM: I feel like, from my first year to now, we’ve really evolved into a team that is setting the highest standards for ourselves. We want to win a national championship. We’re setting these really lofty goals for our top boats, but we’re also a team that does it across the board. From the first boat, to the second, to the third, to the fourth boat, to the people not racing. We’ve really become one cohesive unit… I can say with certainty, no matter how the rest of the spring goes, that I’m so proud of what we’ve done as a team, and I’m so proud to be part of this team because of the way that we have come together.