Stanford University’s rowing team will begin its 2013 season at the end of March and attempt to defend its IRA National Championship with Rossmoor native and Los Alamitos High graduate Alex Cours now a returning senior to the team.
Stanford University’s rowing team will begin its 2013 season at the end of March and attempt to defend its IRA National Championship with Rossmoor native and Los Alamitos High graduate Alex Cours now a returning senior to the team.
Cours brought a strong rowing resume to the Cardinal with six consecutive national titles as a junior rower for Long Beach Junior Crew. She was part of Stanford’s 2012 National Championship team in June in New Jersey and it was the third consecutive national title for the Cardinal I Eight team.
Heading into her senior year, Cours is looking forward to her final season of collegiate rowing and looking forward to her post-college life. The human biology major plans to attend medical school at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York City. Cours has joked that it was her inability to excel at any of the mainstream sports that led her to the sport of rowing. But her early days of rowing didn’t prove that she had a lot of natural ability at the sport. But her determination and her coaches helped develop her skills in the sport.
“My coach started putting me in lineups with the varsity girls, and speed came quickly after that. That’s the secret to rowing fast, rowing behind fast girls.” Cours said.
Cours said she had wanted to attend Stanford since she was in middle school and that it was a luck coincidence that she became a lightweight rower and that the school had a top-ranked lightweight rowing team. Getting to the point of being good enough to row for a program like Stanford was an uphill battle that Cours embraced.
She jokes that it may have also been a crush on her novice coach that also kept her coming back to practice. But at practice, she said she has had a lot of coaching support and also credited her teammates with giving her fast rowers to try and compete against. She said chasing fast rowers was a big part of her development as a rower.
“My coaches inspire me, my teammates push me, and my family supports me. I am well aware that my success has less to do with me, and much more to do with them and how they’ve all influenced my character and growth,” Cours said.
That development began to yield results in her sophomore year of high school. She was part of the junior 8+ championship. In her junior year she was a member of the 4X championship team and as a senior was part of the 2X championship team that was also the second place 8+ team. After that it has been three consecutive national championships with Stanford. She chalks up the success to luck, in having been paired with some talented teams.
But while the titles have been nice, Cours said that throughout her career, it has been the friendships that have brought most of the rewards for her. She said that not only in practices, but in trips and just hanging out with her teammates that are her fondest memories.
“I really love laughing with my teammates, possibly more than I actually like rowing itself,” Cours said.
And it has also been her teammates who have kept her motivated. While she admits that seeing the sunrise can be beautiful, she is only awake at 5 a.m. because she is committed to her teammates and her sport. Cours is the daughter of Rusty and Heather Cours and she has two siblings, Shea and Noah.
Q&A with Stanford rower Alex Cours
You have said you didn’t have a lot of natural ability in rowing, so when do you feel like you really began to become a good rower?
When I first started rowing, there really was nowhere to go but up. My tendency to laugh at myself was enormously valuable at this time, because I was comically slow. But my learning curve was steep for my first few years of rowing. I remember I spent the summer after my novice year training in a single scull. I wanted so badly to row with the fast girls. Come fall, I had a much better understanding of what it felt like to move a boat.
What are your favorite memories of your youth rowing?
I have some really incredible memories from summer sculling camps, jumping into a dirty white truck with a boat-laden trailer hitched behind, my coach at the driver’s seat and a few of my teammates squeezed in the backseat. Thirteen hours later, we knew far too much about each other, in the best way. Then we started training for the summer regattas, practicing two, sometimes three times a day. I’m still really close with my teammates from those summer camps.
Most of my favorite memories have to do with the funnier moments in rowing, whether they took place on the water, in a bus on the way to a regatta, or at the bagel shop after practice.
Who would you say was the biggest influence in your rowing development?
This is so difficult to answer.
That being said, a few people do stand out in my mind. One of my coaches, Dan Duxbury, is not just an exceptionally talented coach but also a cherished mentor and friend. He showed me how to race like an underdog, with fighting spirit, and how to regard my competitors with a sense of fellowship and respect. His coaching helped me realize that a rower’s size and strength don’t necessarily determine the outcome of a race. It’s heart that carries a rower across the finish line in first, or as Mark Twain said, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” For an especially small lightweight rower like myself, these lessons were pivotal.
What are some of your favorite things to do in Palo Alto, when you’re not rowing or studying?
If I’m not studying or rowing, I’m probably sleeping. But if I’m not sleeping, I’m most likely spending time with my teammates and friends. And those two groups may be mutually inclusive. In the spring we often go “fountain hopping,” a Stanford tradition involving jumping into water fountains around campus. We also hike up the foothills at Stanford, popularly known as “The Dish,” or grab coffee at either Coupa Café or Philz Coffee. On Sundays, we ride our bikes to the local farmer’s market on California Avenue and munch on the fruit and pastry samples.
You’ve mentioned having a crush on your novice coach. Who is currently your biggest celebrity crush?
Oh, my gosh. Is it super cliché if I say Ryan Gosling? It totally is, but I don’t care. I would probably throw up and then faint if I saw him in real life. Also I have a humongous girl-crush on Kristen Wiig.
Do you have a favorite rowing event?
I’ve always loved the San Diego Crew Classic because they have tons of food and clothing vendors, and a giant jumbotron screen showing a live feed of the races. I get such a thrill thinking that I might be on the jumbotron for a couple of seconds, like I’m famous or something.
