Rowing is always considered a team sport, and for ODU rowers Marisa Fruetel and Brett Wolff it is a sport that they've enjoyed together since high school.
"We started in sophomore year of high school so we weren't really in the sport for very long, which is beginning later than most people in college," Frutel said.
Marisa and Brett both attended the same high school together in the same class at Kamiak high school in Mukilteo, Washington.
As they were being recruited they both still had to learn the sport to fully become the athletes they now are today at Old Dominion.
"I don't think we knew what rowing was going to be like in college," Fruetel said. "It is way more difficult for sure."
In fact the sport that they now team up in, actually started because of something they wanted to go out and try together. "We started because it was in a pamphlet about parks or recreation and my mom said they give a lot of scholarships for rowing," Wolff said. "I told Missy I was not going to do it by myself, so I said Missy come row with me and that's how we got started."
Marisa and Brett ended up from one side of the west coast all the way to the east coast at Old Dominion, which sent them on a new journey they both discovered. "One of the previous coaches recruited me," Fruetel said, "and then I talked to Brett and I said you should look into them too, and we both ended up here."
"I sent around 100 emails and said I was really interested in your school," Wolff said. "Take me on an official visit I really want to go there."
Now they are both current sophomores on the ODU rowing team and have participated in several meets. Looking not too far down the road they both want to move to California, all in coincidence. Brett is a psychology major and Marisa is a geology major. Marisa plans to go somewhere in Northern California where she can study forest geology. Brett is looking forward to graduate school in California.