#d3week Student-Athlete Profile: Loren Lock, Wellesley Crew
As part of NCAA Division III Week, Wellesley Athletics will feature daily profiles that will provide an opportunity to meet four of our outstanding Division III student-athletes. Each profile will touch on multiple aspects of the student-athlete experience, including: on and off the field accomplishments, leadership and community involvement and what being a Division III student-athlete means to them. Our second profile focuses on junior Loren Lock, co-captain of the Blue crew team and a native of Fond du Lac, Wis.
Wellesley Athletics (WA): What Academic Accomplishment are you most proud of during your time at Wellesley?
Loren Lock (LL): "What a tough question. I do not think that there is one, specific academic accomplishment of which I am most proud. Perhaps I am most proud that I have maintained high academic achievement, and this achievement has allowed me to pursue incredible opportunities outside of Wellesley. For example, last summer I participated in a Centers for Disease Control sponsored program that aims to provide students with internships in the field of maternal and child health, and during one winter session I received an internship position in Vieques, Puerto Rico."
WA: What Athletic Accomplishment are you most proud of during your time at Wellesley?
LL: "Before coming to Wellesley, I swam and played soccer competitively but was not nearly good enough nor committed enough to either sport to consider competing at the college level. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be proficient enough to compete at the NCAA championship level, yet I have competed at the NCAA [Rowing] competition each year that I have been on the team."
WA: What Leadership and/or Community Involvement projects have you been involved with?
LL: "This year, I have served as co-captain of the crew team along with an awesome fellow-Midwesterner, Em Reuder! (Pictured above with Loren after the Blue won the 2014 Seven Sisters Championship), and as a first year mentor for incoming first year students. Over winter session, I participated with four other teammates in the Albright Institute for Global Affairs; as part of this program, I will travel this summer to New Delhi, India, to work with an organization that works in TB prevention and treatment. Last year, I took a year away from Wellesley to live in Guatemala; while there I worked and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity Guatemala, a rural clinic, and a domestic violence shelter."
WA: What has your experience as a Wellesley student-athlete meant to you?
LL: "My time as a varsity athlete has been the single most defining experience of my time at Wellesley. I came to Wellesley convinced that I was uninterested in participating in a varsity sport because there were so many activities that I was interested in participating in. So, I auditioned for a dance group on campus (Side note /fun fact from Loren: 'I didn't make the cut'), went to a few rugby practices, and began to volunteer at a local elementary school. Through classes and my first-year mentor group, I had a lot of friends on the crew team who worked to convince me that I could have serious potential on the team. By that point in the year, I was in search of a community to be apart of on campus, and I decided to try the team out. What I didn't know at that point was that the team would become my closest friends, competitors, and advocates.
Over time, this team has meant many things to me. Presently, I am most grateful for the incredible opportunity it gives me to work each day with people who I never would have to gotten to know otherwise. We come from such a variety of athletic experiences, geographic locations, and personal values and perspectives, yet we come together every morning to create really fast lineups that are competitive at a national level. Every time I step back to consider this, I am so proud to call Blue Crew my teammates and family."
Loren and her teammates after completing "The Gauntlet"--an annual team-building tradition in the fall.