Southwestern Central School senior Katy Janowsky, seated center, is headed to the University of San Diego in the fall where she will continue her academic and rowing careers. Joining in signing her letter of intent are her stepfather Eric Snabl and mother, Sandra Meyers Snabl. Janowsky is also the daughter of Bruce Janowsky. Standing, from the left, are Southwestern High School principal Mike Cipolla and Chautauqua Lake Rowing Association coach Jim Odrzywolski. P-J photo by Cody Crandall

Sports have potential to provide student-athletes with a vast amount of opportunities as they progress throughout their life.

For Southwestern Central School senior Katy Janowsky, it’s the sport of rowing that will, in part, allow her to continue her academic and athletic career on the West Coast at the University of San Diego.

“This is only my second season,” Janowsky said Wednesday. “But a lot of my friends rowed. So that kind of got me into it. But also, it appealed to me thinking that maybe I’ll be able to play a sport in college because I’ve always played soccer and been really athletic, but it’s a lot harder to play soccer in college. I thought that if I rowed then maybe I could continue my athletic career at the collegiate level.

“I think like I’m a really intense person,” Janowsky said, “so I really enjoy the intensity of (rowing). But I really like how it’s still a team sport. I think it kind of relates to soccer in a lot of ways. Just the grit it takes and also how you have to interact with your teammates. … Every college on my list was big cities, far away, something exciting so I really wanted to go to a different place. And (the University of San Diego) was just really pretty and they had strong academic (programs). … It just felt right.”

Janowsky will continue the trend of local student-athletes who have worked with the Chautauqua Lake Rowing Association to make the jump to the collegiate level.

Other local girls who spent time with the CLRA and have rowed collegiately at some point include Jamestown’s Haley Jones (Syracuse University), Southwestern’s Emily Wuebbolt (Cornell University), Jamestown’s Hayley Nieves (the University at Buffalo), Southwestern’s Amy-Katherine Turner (Miami University), Panama’s Chiara Young (Rochester Institute of Technology), Southwestern’s Caitlin Wuebbolt (George Washington University), Southwestern’s Mary Agarwala (the University at Buffalo) and Southwestern’s Elizabeth Wright (Hobart and William Smith Colleges).

“When you see a youngster just go off to college and participate in the sport of rowing, whether is a D1 or even a club program, it’s exciting to see that we’ve given them the desire to continue on in something in their college life,” said Jim Odrzywolski, the high school coordinator and one of the coaches at the CLRA. ” … That’s a big jump from when you’re going from one of the local (high) schools, both in size and in sport experience. The level of competition is so much higher.”

And when it comes to Janowsky, Odrzywolski sees nothing but bright things in her future.

“She works hard, she listens, she appears to be very coachable,” Odrzywolski said. “This is what I think colleges want. It’s a joy when you have a high school team as a high school coach and you can talk with somebody and they listen and they at least give it a shot. … She listens and tries it and works hard to try and improve. And I think in the long run, that’s going to help her when she gets to college, because if she maintains that same good, positive attitude and hard-working attitude, she’ll do well at school.”