March 21, 2013
By Chelsea Howard, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - On Tuesday night, 2012 Bronze Olympic Medalist and Penn State graduate Natalie Dell came back to her alma mater to share her success story from starting out on a club team to rowing for the first Olympic medal in the quadruple sculls event in London.
When Dell first arrived in London it wasn't long before all the athletes went through "processing" where they received all of their free gear and were fitted for their Ralph Lauren opening ceremony outfits.
"After two hours of trying on clothes I just stopped and thought who am I?" Dell said. "Is this really my life and how did this happen?"
The answer is through 3,116 days of training. Waking up at 4:30 in the morning for years and training on her own, going to work, running during her break, then going back and training all while keeping up with graduate school takes a certain type of person to manage it all. Dell was that type of person.
Her career began her freshman year of college when she arrived at Penn State as a non-athlete. Knowing nearly nothing about the sport when she started, Dell was determined to figure it all out.
"I tried rowing because a friend of a friend suggested it," Dell said. "I completely fell in love with the challenge because it was harder than anything I had tried before, but so frustrating. I thought if I keep coming back maybe it will get easier and I thought that up until the moment I competed in the Olympics. It felt like something I was born to do."
The first of many challenges that Dell faced was coming from a club team rather than a varsity team. This meant working a part-time job to afford staying on the team, working football games to raise money, and spending six hours cleaning up Beaver Stadium after a game to be able to pay the coaches that taught them everything.
Transferring to another school with rowing as a varsity sport and taking a scholarship offer would be an easy way out, but that wasn't the route Dell was willing to take.
"My sophomore year I was recruited by several Division I rowing programs. They offered me scholarships to transfer - no more fundraising, no more dues, no more cleaning the stadium. No scholarship, no amount of free gear could convince me to leave this place," Dell said.
After graduating in 2007 and becoming the first person in her family to graduate from a four-year college, Dell had to play catch up to be able to compete against her peers coming out of other universities with varsity programs.
Dell watched the 2008 Olympics and made the decision to give herself four years to get as far as she could with rowing and put everything else aside, which not only led to a successful career, but also helped her stay motivated despite all of the challenges.
"I loved what I was doing and I put myself on a timeline," Dell said. "I thought `I will give myself four years for this. I will put this first and I will put everything aside.' I will put my career second, my personal life second."
Just like any elite athlete, Dell set lofty goals to keep her going. The next step to continue her rowing career was to receive an invitation to train at the National Training center. Dell's determination to reach that goal was the fact that if she were selected to be a full-time athlete, she would be one of two women in a 40 person training group to come from a club team.
"I had big goals but they didn't come quickly," Dell said. "I chipped away at them slowly. It took three years of training after graduating from Penn State but eventually I began to reach the National Teams performance standard."
After receiving her invitation in August 2010, she drove from Boston to New Jersey to begin the next two years of training. They trained year-around, six days a week, six hours a day in a high-pressure situation. There was one phrase that Dell kept in the back of her mind to help her go from training alone in a boat to training with three other girls.
"Work hard, dream big, and put the boat first," Dell said. "It's a code that anyone who has to work within a team can relate to. I can't take credit for this though. It's a code my teammates taught me and I observed through examples."
Dell made it through the grueling selection process after going through 23 races over five days.
"Ultimately, it simply wasn't about us, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about the person beside me," Dell said. "It was about finding the fastest possible line-up for the United States. Whether we were going to be in it or not, we were going to contribute to that process."
Dell was selected four weeks before they went to London. The four athletes selected for the quadruple scull had never raced together in the same boat and only had a few weeks to practice together. The race was 2,000 meters and would take about six and a half minutes to complete.
When it came time to race Dell felt calm and in control, using single words to focus before the race and to help any nerves that her teammates may have had.
"For the past four weeks all we've done was imagine this moment," Dell said. "The nerves here could wreck you and the race had already been decided. When we were sitting there waiting I would say one-word mantras. I would say `breathe' and I saw Kara's shoulders go up and down. Then I leaned up and put my hands on Kara's shoulders. I said `Kara you are going to do amazing. We are going to do amazing. We are going to do something incredible' and everyone in the boat nodded their heads."
Four years of hard work came down to just seven minutes of a single race. On that day, Dell helped change history. She was part of the first American team to win a medal in this event at the Olympics. Training for eight years and making countless sacrifices along the way all seemed worth it to help her reach some of her biggest goals.
"When we crossed the line, it took five seconds for them to illuminate the jumbotron and say the finish order and it felt like five minutes," Dell said. "I could feel the strength of my dad and the courage of my mom all the way from their seats 2,000 meters away and the collective strength of the three women who sacrificed everything and years of their lives working towards the same goal right along with me."
When Dell returned to America, she brought home a bronze medal along with memories she can hold on to forever and accomplishments at one point she never thought were possible.
"The Olympian in me will always wish that [the medal] were a different color. But I am not just an Olympian. I was part of the first American crew in the history of the women's quad to medal in this event. I was a club athlete."
One of the most admirable characteristics of Dell is that she never lost sight of the reasons she was competing and always takes pride in where she came from.
"I am a Penn State Alumni. I bleed the colors of this university. It changed my life. It changed my family's life. The pride attached to the achievement of this medal no matter what color it is far exceeds my ability to describe. It's a pride that I am honored to share with you and honored to share with you as Penn State's first rowing Olympian. This is not just my medal. This is the United States' medal and this is Penn State's medal. And for that I am very, very proud," Dell said.