With frozen shaky hands, Charlotte Aeder walks to the front of the boat and lifts her side up. The coxswain begins to shout out directions, and with no one to look to for help, and no previous knowledge of any of the calls, she tries her best to keep up. As the rain splatters against her face, and the cold wind cuts through her mom’s purple jacket, Aeder helps carry the boats and docks into Forge Pond.
As a 14-year-old getting her first glimpse at what being on the crew team looks like, this experience was less than ideal for Aeder. Little did the eighth grader know, she would go on to win many races and accolades, and earn herself a D1 commitment to the University of Rhode Island (URI).
Aeder had been considering several schools, however she eventually realized that she had always held a love for URI. By the beginning of her freshman year, Aeder had already toured around 20 schools because her sister was applying to colleges at the time. She had been to campuses nationwide, but URI stuck out to her the most.
“Going into my sophomore year, I started emailing coaches and trying to figure out what I wanted more,” Aeder said. “And I started touring schools again, looking at it not just as a school but [if] could I row there as well. And the first day my mom was like, ‘What schools do you want to tour this year?’ and the first school I said was URI. So I think it was meant to be.”
Though she could not imagine her college life without rowing now, the sport has not always been so crucial for her life past high school. The turning point for Aeder was when she was rewarded the ‘Most likely to go D1’ superlative by the team during her freshman year.
“I was like, ‘Wait, maybe I could do that’. I’ve never seen myself as athletic growing up, because I was never really good at the other sports [I did].” Aeder said.
Aeder has been swimming since the age of 7, and has also played softball and fenced, however, she never really loved any of these sports. After she had quit her softball team, and her fencing club shut down a year later, Aeder was searching for a new sport. That’s when her close friend senior Jake Patterson began to persuade her to join the crew team with him. After finally being convinced, Aeder joined in April 2021, and not only found a sport that she loved, but also one that she excelled at at.
“Watching her become the seniors that we used to look up to, […] there was always that one person, those few people, that are really fast, really good. They motivate the whole team, and everyone wants to become them, everyone wants to be them, because they’ve got the best times, they’re the biggest, they’re the strongest. […] And it’s just been cool to see her get better, [and] then become the best pretty quickly,” Patterson said.
Some of Aeder’s best memories from rowing come from her first season on the team. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, she and Patterson were able to row in a double seat boat the entire season. Aeder recalls one time when she and Patterson had just been able to row a full length of Forge Pond together when suddenly, it started raining. They began to complain about having to row in the rain, when unexpectedly, the rain subsided and a perfect rainbow spread out over the entire pond, and Patterson and Aeder were able to row through a rainbow together.
Aeder still looks up to those seniors from her first few seasons on the team and credits them as large role models in her life. Even now, she will call them if she has problems, and meet up with them when their breaks overlap such as for Friendsgiving in November.
Though Aeder no longer fences or plays softball, she still swims competitively for WA, and in past years, swam during the summer for Chelmsford Swim & Tennis. Despite Aeder wanting to quit swimming for as long as she can remember, she realized how beneficial it was in making her faster at rowing due to them both being cardio sports.
Balancing being a four-season athlete with rigorous school courses is something Aeder has to relearn at the start of every school year. Just her senior year course load alone includes AP Economics, AP Environmental Science, Honors English, CP Calculus, and Honors Mechanical Engineering. However, by maintaining a rigid study schedule, Aeder is able to complete all of her work while also managing to fit in time for herself.
Even with such a heavy workload and tight athletic schedule, Aeder sees the importance of making time for herself. After learning from her grandmother, Aeder has gained a love for sewing, and has since made quilts, clothes, and even made her Homecoming dresses and altered her Cotillion dress. Her favorite things to make are pants and dresses.
Another thing that Aeder does outside of rowing and school is volunteer work and community service. As a part of Westford Community Rowing, a non-profit rowing club based in Westford that supports the WA crew team, Aeder helps out with the ‘Learn to Row’ programs. Additionally, Aeder is a peer counselor at WA and lifeguards over the summer at a local apartment complex’s pool.
For many years, Aeder and her family have been participating in the Pan Mass Challenge, a bike-a-thon aimed to raise funds for cancer research. Although this began as a fun event her mom suggested for her sister and her, the challenge became much more important with the diagnosis of her dad. Last year Aeder completed her first in-person event, and found fundraising for the cause to be extremely rewarding.
Aeder’s dedication to not only her sport, but also her academics and passions is what her teammates believe to be the reason she has earned herself a spot on the URI rowing team. Though Aeder is not completely sure what she would like to major in just yet, she knows it will have some relation to STEM.
“Everything [Aeder] does, she’s dedicated to it,” Patterson said. “Especially with rowing, before test pieces which are indoors and the gym, you just try to go as fast as possible. But watching her, she makes a note card, with all of the splits she wants to hit, everything she wants to do, and her mantras. She’s all in with the mental and physical capacity, and it makes sense why she’s so good. […] It’s because she commits hard.”
