From crude oar to precious Stone
Rick Devereux
Being 14 can be no fun.
Being 5-foot-11 as a female freshman can be no fun.
“There aren’t a lot of 6-footers at Newport [Harbor High],”
Stephanie Stone said. “I tend to stick out.”
Stone sticks out not just because of her height.
She is also one of the best rowers in the United States. Her time
of 7 minutes, 9 seconds in the 2,000 meters is the fifth-fastest
clocking in the nation and seventh fastest in the world in the 13- to
18-year-old age division.
And she hasn’t even been rowing for a full year yet.
“My friend’s brother did crew and she told me we were going to try
out for crew in the summer,” Stone said. “I was, like, ‘OK. What’s
crew?’ ”
In August, Stone went to the Newport Aquatic Center and did what
all hopefuls do in order to try out -- she worked out on the
ergometer (a stationary rowing machine) for 20 minutes and ran two
miles.
“She was like any ordinary freshman, any ordinary 14 year-old,”
NAC Coach Christy Shaver said. “We don’t put a lot of pressure on our
freshmen. We just want them to have fun and enjoy the sport while
they’re still learning it.”
Because of the emphasis on enjoyment and knowledge, Shaver and the
NAC tend to keep neophytes on the novice or freshman teams.
“Freshmen have asterisks next to their names because we want them
to have fun,” Shaver said. “But with her ability, you have to keep
trying to push her back to be a freshman and have fun.”
Stone proved she had natural ability by performing well in
practice, constantly learning and improving.
The bench mark for rowers is 2,000 meters on the ergometer. She
started out around 7:40.00, fast enough to be in the top 150 in the
world for her age group.
“She just has a natural gift,” said her dad, Bob Stone. “She was
good in soccer growing up, but never this good. She has always been
athletic and extremely strong. I have two sons in their early 20s,
and they’ve been telling me that when they wrestle with Steph, they
really have to try to beat her because she has become so strong.”
Her strength is one of her strengths, and so is her height. But
Shaver believes Stone’s greatest asset is something not measured in
pounds or inches.
“She is mentally very tough,” Shaver said. “The rest of the kids
call it the ‘Stephanie move.’ She just can decide to pour it on. We
were at a race and we were losing. In 20 strokes, Stephanie pulled us
back to win. She told me after the race that she thought she really
made a difference in the race. The race official told me it was the
most amazing thing he had seen.”
Stone’s fast rowing and rapid climb to the top of the rowing
charts has caught the eye of more than just race officials. Stone was
invited to the 2005 U.S. junior women’s national team development
camp in Connecticut this summer. She is the youngest of the 38 rowers
who will be training with the U.S. junior national team.
“I’m hoping I can bring down my time and increase my speed,” Stone
said. “I want to drop to under seven minutes [in the 2,000]. But I’m
just going to go along and do everything I can while I’m there.”
Princeton University, the top women’s collegiate crew program in
the nation, has already contacted the Stones about Stephanie
attending once she graduates. She hasn’t even finished her freshman
year at Newport Harbor yet.
And training with the U.S. junior national team naturally leads
one to think about the Olympics.
“Is she almost [at that level]? No,” her father said. “In three
years, maybe. In seven years, possibly. We don’t want to get too
ahead of ourselves.”
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