NEW YORK – On April 11, Sam Melvin and coxswain Bella Zionts of the Columbia lightweight rowing team's varsity eight were selected to participate in the USRowing U23 Selection Camp. If selected the two Lions will represent the United States at the World Rowing Championships, scheduled for July 24-28 in Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida.
 
Despite having the same goal, the pair have taken vastly different paths to earn the chance to compete for Team USA. Melvin has already represented the United States, earning a bronze medal at the U23 World Championships in Poland last summer, while Zionts gets her first crack on this stage.
 
Melvin, who is enrolled in the School of General Studies, will look to earn a spot in the lightweight quadruple sculls and Zionts, a senior at Barnard College, aims to be named coxswain for the men's open eight. She is also the first woman to ever be selected to a men's camp in USRowing history.
 
GoColumbiaLions.com sat down with Melvin and Zionts last week to discuss what it meant to be selected for the camp and how Columbia has helped them along the way.
 
How did the opportunity come about to be invited to the U23 Camps?
 
Sam Melvin: For a four-person boat, you get selected from a pool of 16 people that get invited. So, the process is you get invited to the camp and then they select the boat from there over the summer. For me, last year was the first year that I was invited. I think it was because I had gone to a bunch of individual races and had a bunch of race results before that and kind of a conglomeration of two or three years before that and that is how I first got invited. I went there last year and made the team for the summer and that is how I am getting invited back again.
 
How do you get into the USRowing pipeline? Is it just based on previous performance or does it take some connections?
 
SM: For me initially, it was a little bit of connections. Mainly though, as a rower at least, a lot of is your ERG score and how hard you can pull over a 2000-meter ERG test. Other than that, it is individual results from miscellaneous regattas.
 
Bella Zionts: It is definitely very subjective for coxswains, as you are talking in the boat and don't have an ERG score. So, I was kind of thinking about this last summer trying to do this after we won (the IRA National Championship), but I didn't think it was something I could do. But I was talking to Nich (Lee Parker) this fall, and he said, 'you know I really think you should try to do U23.'
 
I ended up sending my recordings to the coaches and talking to a lot of the coaches, and I went to a small pre-selection event in November at Princeton and there was about 100 people attending. I think for coxswains it is very much based on coach recommendations, results, and recordings. I sent my recordings to both the men's and women's coaches and it was really cool that they did decide to send me an invitation from the Men's. They have never done that before, so they are kind of taking a risk.
 
For people who don't know anything about it, what is on the recordings?
 
BZ: Coxswain racing speech definitely sounds weird if you do not row, but it is rhythmic and aggressive. The rowers are all sitting backwards, so I am trying to give them all the information they need to win the race. So, if that is our position in the race or if they just made a move, then were going to make a move. It is a lot of decision making, and it is very subjective in regard to who gets put in what boat.
 
You are basically telling the guys that they need to increase pace, if there is any issues or obstacles, right?
 
BZ: Yes, because in a big race where we are six boats across, it is very much like 'one seat up on Harvard' or 'one seat down on Princeton.' It's a lot of information. I am also in charge of telling them to execute the race plan, it is very much like a performance and we practice our performance. So, if we are "x" meters in, we are going to do this that we practiced.
 
Do you have to change anything in your training or add any other workouts to get ready for the camp?
 
SM: For me, it really is, because all college rowing is sweep rowing, with one oar, and I am trying out for a team where I am going to be rowing with two oars. So, it really is a balancing act. I try to go out in a single person boat to get practice to maintain my ability and the technique of it. I know that, compared to last summer, I am not going to get technically better at sculling just doing it once or twice a week. To set myself up the best way possible, I will really just have to focus on maintaining and fitness-wise, to improve fitness as much as possible, so I can come out this summer and be better than last year.
 
How has the coaching staff at Columbia and competing on the team help you get to this point?
 
BZ: This is my fourth year here, and I will say flat out I came here, I was not a very good. Nich Lee Parker took so much time to help me develop. I will say on most teams, coxswains don't really get coached. It is a very unusual position. You kind of learn from the rowers, being in fast boats the rowers will say 'say this,' 'don't say this,' or 'look out for that.' I would say that I walked onto this team my freshman year and I was the eighth-best coxswain. Nich took a lot of time with me, listened to my recordings and helped me get to where I am now. Without Columbia lightweight rowing, I would not be doing this right now.
 
SM: This is my first year here as a junior. My road started at a school in California where I rowed sweep rowing for two years, so I didn't get closer to making the national team or sculling team. So, after my freshman year I started rowing with a new guy and learning how to scull and, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't good. I made some good improvements and raced that summer. Then the next year, I spent a lot of extra time sculling and then I raced again in the summer of 2018 in the national team trials and got second, which was a step in the right direction. That combined with my ERG scores, that is what got me invited to the camp last summer. Now I am already in the system and I got invited back this summer.
 
Sam, what does it mean to represent the United States?
 
SM: It is really a dream come true. It is something I have been trying to do for three summers. It was a culmination of the years of hard work and the experience itself was really good for me.
 
Bella, what would it mean to get selected and be able to represent your country?
 
BZ: When you say that, I have this memory of my mom, I was a freshman in high school, and I started being a coxswain, and there is this article in the newspaper about Mary Whipple, the U.S. coxswain in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and my mom put this article on my bulletin board. I started out in high school and I was crashing into things and I never knew what was going on, but I was always reading this article and I memorized it thinking about getting an opportunity like this. So yeah, it would be such a great honor to make the boat.