Olympic rower Jamie Schroeder, second from left in Seat 3, will visit Chautauqua Institution next week and attend an educational event Monday at the Chautauqua Lake Rowing Association’s Jones and Gifford Avenue boathouse. Submitted photo

The Chautauqua Lake Rowing Association has announced an educational event will be held from 4-5:30 p.m. at the boathouse at 18 Jones and Gifford Ave. in Jamestown on Monday.

The public and club members are invited to hear a motivational talk by Olympic rower Jamie Schroeder. After the talk, members from the CLRA Recreational/Masters group, as well as the CLRA high school team members are invited to row on the water at 5:45 p.m. Schroeder will coach the rowers from a coach boat or may even row.

At the Choate School as a freshman, Schroeder was the biggest kid among the potential band members. He played the tuba and went on to play with the Northwestern marching band during the two years he spent there before transferring to Stanford. At Northwestern he took up rowing to stay in shape as a sophomore, which altered his plans and took him to his progression as two-time Olympic rower. After two months of joining the Northwestern Club team in 2001, he scored so well on the ergometer (rowing simulator) he was invited to the national team camp. As Schroeder is 6-foot-10, he often felt awkward and uncoordinated in his early school years. When he first got in a boat “he felt like a key that had found its lock. The movement fit his body, from the drive backward with his powerful legs on the wheeled seat, to the backward lean and final pull through with his lanky arms.”

Crew is a leg sport and he excelled, feeling for the first time he was using his entire physiology.

In 2001, Schroeder transferred to Stanford to study biotechnology. He found his calling on the varsity rowing team. By 2002, Schroeder became the world’s fastest indoor rower, winning the sport’s premier rowing event, the CRASH-B’s in Boston. Before long Schroeder started winning medals. In the 8, he won gold at the 2001 US Rowing National Championships and gold in the 2002 World Under-23 Regatta in Italy. He took his senior year off from Stanford to train for the Olympics, and finished second in pairs at the Olympic trials.

His World Championship finishes are: 2003 Milan, seventh, Coxless Four (three seat); 2006 Eton, 12th, Single Scull; 2007 Munich, ninth, Quad Scull (three seat). His Olympic finishes are: 2004 Athens, 10th, Coxless Four (two seat); 2008 Beijing, fifth, Quad Scull (three seat).

Schroeder is currently in his fourth year of residency in radiology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Kelsey Twist and his three daughters. He will be at Chautauqua Institution for a week and is looking forward to rowing on Chautauqua Lake. He rows whenever he can, but with three young girls, a wife securing a doctorate in education and working as busy resident, time is precious. The family is looking forward to visiting Chautauqua.

“When I race it’s like I’m in am altered state, transfixed with the movement of the crew,” Schroeder said. “I imagine my legs are batteries and I drain them at exactly the right rate so there’s nothing left in the end.”

CLRA welcomes Schroeder to the water at the CLRA boathouse and we will be motivated by his energy and experience. He will be an inspiration to our high school rowers.