Rowing Helps Withycombe Reach Potential, Educate Others

Rowing Helps Withycombe Reach Potential, Educate Others

Psychology Major and GSE Graduate is NCAA's Advanced Diversity Educator

By Katie Huber '13, Writer

SALEM, ORE. -- Sociology professor Linda Heuser will never forget the day she met Jenny (Schaecher) Withycombe 02, MAT 03.

Jenny came into my office, sat down and asked, What does sociology offer me as a discipline? Heuser says. In my 23 years of teaching, shes the only student to ask me to prove why she should be a major.

As a Willamette student-athlete and throughout her career Withycombe has continued to display the determination Heuser recognized in their first meeting: earning All-America honors twice as a collegiate rower, completing a masters in teaching and a doctorate in sports psychology, and landing a competitive contract as the advanced diversity educator for the NCAA.

Withycombe says the empowerment she gained from rowing, and her close relationship with professor Heuser, will stay with her forever.

Any time I questioned my abilities, rowing gave me the confidence to keep trying, Withycombe says. Linda Heuser is like rowing for me. She is my mentor and my rock.

Striving for Success

As a first-generation college student from Sacramento, Calif., Withycombe says she sometimes questioned her ability to succeed at Willamette until she discovered the rowing team.

Rowing helped everything fall into place, Withycombe says. When we would have a good race or I would beat an old time, I would come back thinking, Im great, Im fabulous, Im wonderful, I can do it.

Great is an understatement. During her four years rowing for Willamette, Withycombe led the womens varsity 8+ to a fifth place finish at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in 2003. The WV8+ ranked as high as #18 in the nation that year.

She was selected as a national scholar-athlete all four years, and she was named the Jean Williams Award winner as the female athlete of the year at Willamette in 2003.

Withycombes success was far from just natural talent she put in the work to make it happen.

I would run to the boathouse, work out, and then run home. I even went to the mens practices, just in case they needed an extra rower, she says. I was kind of like a DI athlete at a DIII school, in terms of my mentality.

Sports gave Withycombe something to strive for and commit to, a mindset that she carried over into the classroom.

Athletics in no way took away from her academic performance; in fact, it probably enhanced it, Heuser says. Rowing allowed her to reach her maximum potential and develop herself as a person, holistically.

Withycombe, a psychology major and sociology minor, says Willamette fostered in her a love of learning that she wouldnt have found at a larger university.

I loved that my professors cared whether I came to class or not, and I loved that the students cared about the topics we discussed, she says.

A Rich Career Path

Withycombe went to Heuser for advice on her career path and life in general, and when it came time to graduate, Withycombe knew what she wanted to do.

I thought about Linda and how amazing she was in the classroom, and I decided I wanted to learn to teach like her, she says.

Though becoming a professor was her ultimate goal, Withycombe wanted to become a great teacher first. She enrolled in Willamettes Graduate School of Education, where she completed a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in early elementary and elementary education. After graduating from the GSE, she married Adam Withycombe 98, MAT 01 also a former member of Willamettes rowing team and moved to Walla Walla, Wash., to teach fifth grade.

During her summers off from teaching, Withycombe continued to row competitively, attending a national team development camp in Tennessee. When she discovered a graduate program in sports psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Withycombe realized it was time to choose between her passions for racing and teaching.

I thought, what will be more important when I look back on my life the ultimate goal of standing on a podium with a gold medal, or looking back and thinking about all of my students? she says. I realized it was the teaching.

Three years later, armed with a doctorate in sports psychology and a graduate certificate in womens studies, Withycombe was ready to empower others through sports.

"I contacted Ira Childress (the NCAAs assistant director for student-athlete affairs) out of the blue, and I said, I just want you to know that Im the next best thing and you want me, she says.

Though the call caught Childress off guard, Withycombes persistence paid off. When the NCAA opened a contract bid for a diversity educator, she created her own consulting company and won the contract.

Withycombe attributes her success to the training she received at Willamette, particularly the teaching skills she gained at the Graduate School of Education.

I knew about best practices, I knew how to make lessons dynamic and interesting and engaging, I knew how to check for understanding and differentiate my instruction, she says.

All of those things have been critical in being a diversity educator, because not everybody is in the same spot with diversity and not everybody learns in the same way about critical topics like that.

Empowering Others

As the advanced diversity educator for the NCAA, Withycombe has traveled more than 100 days per year providing workshops across the country on gender, race, sexual orientation and culture within intercollegiate athletics. She also earned additional contracts with U.S. Rowing, USA Swimming and the U.S Olympic Committee.

I try to make diversity something people can touch and relate to, she says. Rather than making people feel bad that they are not further along in the sense of diversity, I meet people where they are at.

Today Withycombe is an exercise science professor at Pacific University, but she continues to work as a diversity consultant in her spare time.

Its important to understand how sport enforces racism, sexism and homophobia but also to see that sport has the potential to change those things, she says.

If we can use sport to promote social justice, maybe we can make society a reflection of sport.

Jenny (Schaecher) Withycombe '02, MAT '03 is an exercise science professor at Pacific University. She previously worked as the advanced diversity educator for the NCAA.