In just 11 months, senior Cassidy Coghlan has gone from a beginner in rowing to committing as a Division I athlete, heading to UC San Diego in pursuit of her new sport.
Coghlan had spent years as a competitive water polo player. Wanting to try something new in January, she plunged head first into rowing and immediately showed immense talent at it.
Coghlan started swimming at the age of 3 and swam competitively with De Anza Cupertino Aquatics Swim School before switching to water polo in 2019. For the past five years, Coghlan has been focusing on water polo. She started with the West Valley Club and later transitioned to playing on the San Jose Express water polo team and being varsity captain of the SHS girls’ water polo team for two years.
With the intensity of her training, however, Coghlan was developing shoulder injuries, and the doctors advised taking time off from swimming and water polo to reduce the likelihood of causing permanent bone damage.
“I was planning on going back to water polo in the fall,” Coghlan said. “But I fell in love with rowing and decided to keep pursuing it.”
Since her parents were both D1 rowers at Harvard University and the University of California, Irvine, rowing was always at the back of Coghlan’s mind. Her parents had always had a feeling that Coghlan would be good at the sport.
“I love rowing because it’s a very effort-based sport. You get out of it what you put into it, and there’s very little things that get in the way of that,” Coghlan said. “I loved my other sports, but your success could often be determined by other factors like how your coach or your teammates were feeling that day, so I appreciate how rowing is all about personal drive.”
Ever since she started in January, Coghlan has been training with the Los Gatos Rowing Club, practicing six days and 18 hours a week while attending full-weekend competitions. In the spring and fall seasons, she races the 2k and 5k events, which include singles, doubles and quads, all using two oars, and fours and eights, which both use one oar.
In rowing, the 2,000-meter time on the erg (rowing machine) serves as a key benchmark for skill, particularly in the college recruitment process. After months of intense training, Coghlan brought her time down to an impressive 7:43 (a beginner’s time is typically around 8-9 minutes), prompting her to start exploring college opportunities.
Coghlan began the recruitment process in late May during the rowing regional championships, where coaches from many colleges were on the lookout. Starting in August, she was seriously talking to three schools.
Coghlan committed to UC San Diego on Nov. 11, the Monday after she officially toured the campus and received an offer in-person. In addition to the Division 1 opportunity, the sunny climate and the beach-location of San Diego was personally preferable to the colder, gloomy weather she would’ve been rowing in at East Coast schools.
“When I was touring UCSD, I realized that the facilities, coaches and everything about the school was everything I wanted,” Coghlan said. “The girls on the team were really awesome as well.”
As an aspiring molecular and cell biologist, Coghlan additionally valued UC San Diego for its reputation as a top STEM institution. While competing at a national level in rowing remains a distant goal, her primary focus is on her aspirations in the sciences. She feels grateful that rowing supports her in her academic pursuit.
“I always thought I’d just be playing water polo for college, and it was hard leaving [water polo] after committing so many years,” Coghlan said. “This has been a crazy switch, but I’m grateful that it worked out so well.”
