Inside the Shell: Meet Maria Siemann
Feb. 27, 2012
CORAL GABLES, Fla.–This year the women’s rowing team will compete in 10 regattas throughout the country, representing Miami in such places as Chattanooga, Tenn., Philadelphia and San Diego. We want []_[] to learn more about the exceptional women that are a part of the Hurricane Rowing Family, so we are taking you “Inside the Shell.” Over the next few weeks we will post Q&As, feature stories and other multimedia segments on the student-athletes.
Tackling the Erg
Ever wonder how the rowing trains on land? HurricaneSports.com intern Casey Riordan (@CaseyJude) spent some quality time with Canes Rowing team member Maria Siemann and learned the basics of training on the erg (an indoor rowing machine). Check out the video to see how the tutorial went.
Meet Maria Siemann
I joined the rowing team because the novice coach saw me on campus and kept asking me for a couple of days if I wanted to try out for the team. I kept saying no, I didn’t know what rowing was. I decided to give it a try because I didn’t have anything else going on, and I made it. It was all downhill from there.
Most people don’t know that I’m a quadruplet! I have a brother and two sisters.
The person I look up to the most is my brother Brian. I look up to all my siblings equally, but he and I play the most similar sports. He’s on the wheelchair track team at the University of Illinois. He’s given me the best advice, and we help each other with our racing strategies. When I have trouble with rowing I ask him what he’s thinking at a tough time in his race. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one struggling sometimes.
My goal for the season is to place in the top-three at the ACC Championship.
I have two dogs named Bella and Coco. One’s a German Shepherd and the other is a Beagle-Labrador mix. After a stressful day I like to go home and play with them. They get crazy sometimes, but they’re fun. They take my mind off things.
Rowing has made me a morning person. I actually wake up at whatever practice time is, every day of the week. It’s kind of miserable on the weekends, but it makes me more productive during the day. And it’s given me a sense of motivating myself. I was always used to playing team sports, that’s what I was good at. In rowing you get out of it what you put into it. No one can make you go faster, you have to make yourself go faster.
When I’m not rowing I’m sleeping, cooking or playing with my dogs.
If I won 20 million dollars in the lottery I would buy my parents a house on the beach, since that’s where they want to live.
Before a race I listen to a certain playlist on my iPod. My brother wrote me a note before a race I did really well in, so now I read that note before all my races. Also, if I start wearing something at the beginning of the season, like a pair of sunglasses or a visor, I won’t stop wearing it until the season is over.
One word to describe my team is eclectic. There are a lot of different people with a lot of personalities on the team, but we get along really well. I never thought I’d become such great friends with some of the ladies, but I really like them all. We have a lot of fun together.
If I were a cartoon character, I would be Bugs Bunny, because he’s always having fun and always causing trouble.
To me, the U is somewhere anything can happen. The possibilities are endless. When you commit to something here, you have so many people to support you. It’s a great place to have high goals.
