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Melanie Onufrieff (Penn '94)Head Rowing Coach -- Columbia |
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Bio
What was your experience in youth athletics? Were there opportunities available to you?
I don’t feel like it was that tough [to find opportunities]. I didn’t do sports when I was really really young, but they were always available. I started ice-skating when I was like 10, I’m not sure if that counts really but a little bit. I got into swimming not as early as most do, but when I was 10 or 12 and then that became my life pretty quickly. It was never really that I was seeking out athletics or opportunities and couldn’t find them, it’s that almost that they were there and I didn’t feel like doing it yet. When I was ready for it there were tons of opportunities there. There was a rowing team at my high school and they just kept trying to get me to row but I was just doing something else. I felt like I could do what I wanted to do in sports and it was there for me. Maybe not everybody was involved in sports and it wasn’t like there were so many females involved in athletics that I didn’t have a choice, maybe it’s a little bit more like that now. But I don’t feel like god I wished I could have had this opportunities that wasn’t available to me, that wasn’t the case.
Did you eventually starting rowing in college?
No not until college. I was a swimmer and water polo player all through high school. Then I went to Penn, and just like we do and just like happens at every rowing school anyplace they look for athletic looking people and say hey come and try this. Because I had been so bothered by everybody in high school I said fine I’ll go see what this is about.
How did an Ivy League experience affect your athletics pursuits?
I had done sports and there were some non-Ivy schools that were recruiting me to swim. But I wanted to go to school for the education, that’s why I went to Penn. But I got there and I knew that I wanted sports to be something that I did and I actually didn’t really ever consider non-Varsity sports which I think maybe is crazy because there aren’t really all that many you can just walk onto. Sports was going to have to be a part of it and thankfully rowing was there and I could do that. I’d say having gone through four years, rowing and sports was what shaped the whole experience for me. You know I’m glad that I was there and had all of those great academic opportunities and was able to take advantage of them, almost just because they were there.
Are there any strange feeling coaching against the school you went to?
There were at first. I went directly to coaching at Rutgers and then at Princeton and for a while I was coaching against people I had rowed with, so that definitely was weird. At this point I still give money to my Alma Mater and I would go back there and do it the same way but the people I spend everyday with are my athletes and when we are on the sarting line, that is who I want to win.
How has the national climate concerning women’s athletics changed since you were in school?
When I was in school not really anyone knew what [crew] was, I would go home to California for breaks and this rowing thing, no one knew what it was and I had to explain it to them and they didn’t know really what the deal was. I think it was just kind of an Ivy League sport at that point, it had started there and there was some rowing outside but not really all that much. Now, the NCAA has taken it over and there is rowing everywhere. There’s way more high school rowing, there’s way more college rowing, there are scholarship opportunities and so lots more people in lots more different places of the country know what it’s about. My high school had rowing and it was one of the only ones anyway so those guys had to travel all over the place just to get any kind of competition and now it has exploded.
 What obstacles still stand to young women who want to participate in athletics?
I think that there are just lots of things they can do. There are so many opportunities for women, not just in sports but also in anything. I don’t know, I guess women feel that they can do anything that anyone can do so all opportunities are available to them. You just have to pick and choose, I think, a lot of people get in sports early. Then as they get older they are high school age and the arts now are open to them, they can do theater, they can do music. And you start to decide whether or not you want to do those things at a really high level and you start to have to pick and choose and prioritize what those important things are going to be to you and athletics competes with all those things.
What has athletics done for young girls that choose to participate?
I am fully biased, I did a lot of those other things but a sports is what I chose and it changed my life. The experience that I had as an athlete in college made me a completely different person. I came into college as one thing and came out different, and better I think. More confident, more sure of myself, more of the belief that I could do whatever I wanted if I just put my mind to it. I didn’t come in with that notion even though I was good at school and I had done all these things and I went to an Ivy League school it just raised the bar so tremendously high for me just because I was out on the water everyday. I think that athletics is an integral part of education I think you learn a lot in the classroom and from your books everyday and get prepared to go out into the real world, but I think the real education you get from is learning how hard you can go on the field or in a boat.
What do you see in the future for women's athletics, will it continue to expand?
I guess I see it continuing going where it has gone. For me, because of the experiences that I had growing up, I feel like the opportunities have been there but the variety and richness have grown, again now that you can go and get a scholarship to do a lot of these sports at a lot of schools. Not here obviously, but in a lot of places. I guess I see it continuing to go on in that same vane. Then you’ll have people like me who felt like they had all the opportunities that they wanted from the time they were little kids, now having children and encouraging their kids to do the same thing and also feeling like hey if my daughter wants to do sports she can start it when she’s young and that’s the way it goes. It probably will grow, will it explode once again? I don’t know. Do women want to do sports more than men or vice versa? I don’t know. But I think for a girl who wants to be involved in athletics the opportunities are there. Lots more different options.
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