By Harry Minium
Many faces will be somber yet determined, and there may be a few tears late Friday morning when Old Dominion University's women's rowing team gathers in the ODU Rowing Center in Lakewood Park.
Eventually, they will be joined by members of other sports team. Football players Hayden Wolff, Josh Bennet and Broughton Hatcher. Wrestler Ali Wahab and field hockey players Ashleigh Thomas and Rebecca Birch.
Volleyball, men's and women's soccer, baseball and every other sports team not playing this weekend will also send players. Even the husband and wife team Rick French (associate athletic director of operations) and Kristin Eden (director of student academic services) will pitch in.
Beginning at 11 a.m, they will begin taking turns in the seat of a PRX Performance Concept 2 Indoor Rower and row as quickly as they can for the next 24 hours.
They are doing so to pay homage to Grace Rett, a Holy Cross rower killed on Jan. 15 in Florida when a pickup truck ran into a van transporting players back to Worcester, Mass.
Rett celebrated her 20th birthday the day before she was killed.
The rowing community, while large, is also very close. ODU often competes against Holy Cross in regattas. And while ODU's rowers didn't know Rett personally, they knew her by her reputation as a fierce competitor and a role model. Her death had a major impact on them.
While working through their grief, ODU's rowers came up with the idea of doing a rowing marathon to honor her. The idea then caught momentum when the Student Athletic Advisory Committee got behind the effort.
"I think everybody on our team was collectively shook up when we saw those headlines," rowing coach Dan Garbutt said. "And then when you dig a little bit deeper and see the bio of Grace Rett, and gravity of what happened increased."
Rett was indeed a remarkable young lady. She played cello and sang in the chorus while in high school, where she was an honor student. She was a devout Catholic who did many hours of community service and was active in the campus ministry and weekly Bible study nights for athletes.
She volunteered in admissions for the College of the Holy Cross, as Holy Cross is officially known. She also volunteered to operate live stream cameras for the sports information department.
But it was behind oars where she was at her finest. Just weeks before she was killed, Rett set the Indoor World Rowing record when she completed 62 hours and 3 seconds of continuous indoor rowing. In all, she rowed for the equivalent of 383,000 meters.
Imagine rowing for 2 ½ days without stopping. Yes, Rett was allowed to sleep 10 minutes every hour, but according to news reports, she rarely did.
Rowing that long and that far was an inspiration to rowers and female athletes around the country.
"Over that 62 hours, she completed nine marathons," Garbutt said. "Rowing is very similar to running. It taxes the body in the same way as running.
"It is amazing that this young lady sat down on a long weekend and decided to break this record and then did it."
ODU's rowing team is seeking to repeat that record on Friday and Saturday, with the help of dozens of athletes and athletic administrators, who will take turns on the rowing machine.
"We'll need to keep a fast pace," Garbutt said.
The crash injured five of Rett's teammates. Four were released from a hospital while another was airlifted to Boston for treatment there.
One can only imagine the effect this tragedy has had at Holy Cross, a Jesuit liberal arts college with less than 3,000 students.
The Holy Cross men's rowing team began a Go Fund Me page for pay for medical bills and other expenses for the injured athletes and for Rett's family. And the outpouring was amazing.
In just two weeks, thousands of people and rowing teams from across the country made donations. Some donated as little as $10 and the largest donation was $5,000. Many made their donations anonymously.
When the Go Fund Me Page began to distribute money, more than $270,000 had been raised.
Garbutt said that ODU's rowing team wanted to do more than make a donation. They wanted to pay tribute to her.
"We want to let her family and every one at Holy Cross know that we care, that we feel their loss," Garbutt said. "And we're spreading some awareness of how the families were impacted.
"I can't conceive what they are going through. It's the worst nightmare that a parent can have, that a coach can have.
"I was rocked by it when I heard, especially considering that it happened in the manner that it did. One of the safest things we do is transport our teams."
Garbutt says he's grateful for ODU's other sports teams stepping up to help and hopes the family garners some solace from the 24-hour effort.
"Grace Rett was very much the unsung hero of her team," Garbutt said. "And what an unbelievable force of will she showed.
"What she did was mind blowing."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu