ANDY BAGGOT Insider Related Content • Varsity Magazine • Camp Randall 100

BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — When Kris Thorsness left her home in Alaska to enroll at Wisconsin in the fall of 1978, she brought one suit case, a sense of curiosity and a desire for adventure.

Little did she know when she arrived in Madison from Anchorage that she would become an international rowing legend.

Accompanied by her mother, Priscilla, Thorsness checked into the Regent Apartments and went about getting a sense of the sprawling campus.

In those days, undergraduates gathered at the old Stock Pavilion to get their registration materials. The Wisconsin men's and women's crew coaches used the unique setting to size up and solicit potential rowers, the taller and sturdier the better.

Thorsness, the youngest of three and the only girl, was an all-around athlete in high school — basketball, volleyball, tennis and cross country skiing — who had a sense of the rowing life because her brother, John, rowed at Washington and recommended she give it a try at Wisconsin.

Thorsness didn't stand out in that first registration day crowd — she was only 5-foot-9 — but she overheard a conversation that provided details for rowing tryouts.

"I crashed the party," she said.

Thorsness showed up early, one of 150 or so hopefuls, and embarked on a distinguished rowing career that has earned her a place in the University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. She's part of an 11-member class that will be inducted Sept. 7.

Thorsness is a two-time U.S. Olympian who won a gold medal — the first Alaskan to do so in any sport — rowing in the eight-person boat in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

"Clearly, winning an Olympic gold medal is a big thing," she said. "It was the culmination of many years of effort.

"But I'll tell you, when asked about the highlight of my rowing career — when asked what things are most important to me — it was the college rowing. It was being part of the Wisconsin crew."

Thorsness, a five-time U.S. National Team member, currently serves as a judge at the NCAA women's regatta and has seen the Badgers qualify for the national championships 11 consecutive years.

"I see those big red blades out on the water and I choke up," she said. "It's that emotional for me."

Thorsness will become the second women's rower to be inducted in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame, joining Olympic teammate Carie Graves, who was enshrined as a charter member in 1991.

Though nearly a decade older, Graves has been around Thorsness enough to know her qualifications.

"She's pretty awesome in many, many, many ways," Graves said, noting that Thorsness' strength was her perseverance.

"She just put it all on the table," Graves said. "There was no messing around. You have to get in the boat and you have to do it right and you're not just doing it for yourself, but your teammates. She epitomized that."

Sue Ela, a former Wisconsin rower who coached Thorsness throughout her college career, said Thorsness stood out right from the beginning.

"She was one of those athletes that stood out because she worked so hard, had such a great spirit and logged the extra miles to put herself in position, by the time she was a senior, to be knocking on the door of the national team," Ela said.

"Her attitude is what took her a very long way. She was very positive and whatever boat she was in she kind of sparked it. There was no doubting if I was going to put her in a boat, it was going faster."

Thorsness credits Ela for setting the proper tone.

"We would walk fire for her," Thorsness said. "She inspired us to expect great things of ourselves and to push ourselves beyond any kind of limitations we thought previously existed because that was part of being a Wisconsin rower."

Thorsness embraced the suffering sport mentality of her sport, an attitude perhaps best described by Graves.

"You just sit in a boat and try and make yourself basically pass out," she said. "That's about it."

Thorsness chuckled while noting that the group of 150 hopefuls who tried out with her as a freshman was reduced to 12 rowers and two coxswain by the end of the season.

This is the same Thorsness who rowed in a national championship regatta with kidney stones, a condition bad enough to send her to the hospital nine hours before the race and eventually led to the kidney's removal in 2007.

This is the same Thorsness who thought nothing of running the snowy steps at Camp Randall Stadium to stay in shape.

Thorsness recounted attending a USA Rowing developmental camp after her senior year and conversing with members of the Washington crew. The Huskies had just edged the Badgers for the national title.

"I would trade that trophy to row for Wisconsin," one of the women told Thorsness.

She smiled.

"I wouldn't trade rowing at Wisconsin for that trophy," Thorsness replied.

That sure seemed like an odd proposition.

"There's a mystique about the Wisconsin crew," Thorsness explained. "We'd come to a regatta — we'd been on the water for weeks and everyone else on the water for months — but they never took us for granted because they knew we were tougher than they were. They knew we were a particular brand of crazy that was very alluring."

There was a little bit of crazy stirred into a moment during Thorsness' freshman year. Unimpressed with a makeshift locker room in the boathouse — a screen separating the showers and lockers from the men — nearly 30 women's rowers marched into the reception area outside Wisconsin athletic director Elroy Hirsch's office and changed into their workout gear with members of the local media on hand.

Point taken.

"It was a start," Thorsness said, noting that the boathouse was renovated before she graduated.

Now the three rowing teams — men, women's open weight and women's lightweights — occupy Porter Boathouse, which opened in 2005.

"A fabulous facility," Thorsness said.

Looking back, Thorsness said leaving Alaska for Wisconsin was one of the best decisions she ever made.

She got a degree in political science with an emphasis on international law. She laid the groundwork for becoming a lawyer and made lifelong friends. She got introduced to a sport she loves and achieved the highest honor possible in that sport.

"One of the reasons I fled to Wisconsin is because I wanted to go someplace where there were lots of people who were not like me," Thorsness said. "I certainly got that there.

"One of the things I loved about it is there were people from all over the world. You could sit down there by the fountain in the mall and watch the world go by."

It shouldn't surprise you to know that Thorsness, who resides in Rochester, New York, survived a heart attack in 2007 and had a stent inserted two years ago.

It shouldn't surprise you to know that Thorsness took up hockey and signed up for a 50-and-over league despite not knowing how to skate.

"I spent the first month on my ass or my head," she said. "I'm not very good, but I have a blast."

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UW Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2018

 

• Jolene Anderson, women's basketball
• Simon Bairu, men's cross country, men's track and field
• Allie Blomquist, women's golf
• Bill Chandler, men's basketball
• Tim Gillham, men's fencing
• Jim Johannson, men's hockey
• Ed Nuttycombe, men's cross country and men's track & field
• Donna Shalala, University of Wisconsin Chancellor
• Kevin Stemke, football
• Kris Thorsness, women's rowing
• Final member announced July 19