Paddling on

Susan Francia thought she would be one and done as an Olympic athlete. The 26-year-old rower won gold in the Women's Eight at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and afterward, felt as if it was the right time to move on.

"I really thought about retiring," Francia said. "Because after a gold medal you can get more gold medals, but it's much tougher to stay on top."

It's hard to blame her. Like many top American rowers, Francia began rowing in college. Now she has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Pennsylvania that she has been waiting to start using.

"So I started applying for real, quote, unquote, jobs," she said.

Francia is in the minority of people who is letting out a sigh of relief about the economy. She had a few interviews in the months following the Games, but as she now looks at it, thankfully, she didn't land that full-time job.

"In hindsight,'' she said, "I feel very lucky because I ended up getting back in the boat, which was almost a Plan B for me. But I realized how much I love it and how much I love being out there, and especially rowing in San Diego. It's so beautiful here-palm trees, such great weather. There were so many days when I just felt blessed to have the opportunity to do what I really love, and I realized: it's rowing."

The three-time national team member is training to make Team USA again for the 2009 season, this time in the pair, or two-person boat.

So far, she hasn't showed any signs of slowing down. At the 2009 USRowing National Selection Regatta #1 in West Windsor, N.J., she and partner Erin Cafaro, of Modesto, Calif., won the final with a time of 7:22.548 --- that was just less than two seconds ahead of Olympic boatmates Caroline Lind and Lindsay Shoop.

That event served as the first step toward making the 2009 Senior National Team which will represent the United States at the 2009 FISA World Rowing Championships in August in Poznan, Poland.

"I think in this sport you really need a passion for what you're doing," she said. "There's no money in it, the athletes are doing it just because they love it. Everyone doing it has a college degree, often from great schools, and could be making a lot more money at a desk job, but they are doing this because they really love it."

Since making her decision to continue rowing, Francia has stepped up her efforts to get recognition for her sport. During her offseason, Francia helped develop workout music specifically for rowers and modeled for California Surf Company; she also attended different sports conventions and helped advertise local races.

"Basically my goal really is just to get the sport out there and help rowing develop into something a little more mainstream," she said. "It is frustrating as an elite athlete that some athletes make millions of dollars just because their sport is much more in the media and people know about it and are excited. I think rowers work just as hard as every athlete out there and I wish they would get more recognition for the time and work that they put into it."

Francia also spends time introducing the sport to youngsters.

"It's great inspiring kids, I love showing my medal to kids and they put it around their neck," she said. "If I can inspire one kid to get out there and row then my job is done. I at least succeeded with one person."

Francia has been living in San Diego during the offseason and spending some time in San Francisco training with the California Rowing Club. Francia, who has spent most of her life on the East Coast, is hoping to make it a permanent move to the West Coast by purchasing a house in San Diego next fall.

Born in Szeged, Hungary, Francia moved to the United States when she was 2. She played a handful of sports as she grew into her current 6-2 athletic frame, but when she was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania she decided to forget about sports and focus on school.

That plan didn't work out as she had hoped. Pretty soon her grades started slipping and she found that school was taking over her social life. So before her sophomore year she saw a flyer for the rowing team and decided to give it a shot.

"I realized I needed a sport to help me with management," Francia said. "I was always very athletic and strong but never very skilled at other sports, and rowing was one of the few teams that you could just walk onto in college."

Bingo.

She instantly started making friends on the team and got her grades up high enough to make the Dean's List. She ended up graduating from Penn in four years with bachelor's and master's degrees in criminology while also garnering All-American honors in rowing.

College rowing is mostly done in the eight-person boats, and that is where Francia has dedicated most of her time in the past four years. But it's also where Team USA is at its strongest, she said, and she wants to try to get some recognition while racing in the pairs.

"We have doubled them up in the past couple years," Francia said of training for both disciplines. "But I'm hoping if we concentrate just on the pair that pressure will be on."

Francia has had some success in the pair while training in both boats in 2007 and 2008. She raced in two World Cup races and won the bronze medal in one of them in 2007.

Francia is looking forward to the challenge of racing in the pair, although she says racing the pair is much more challenging than racing the eights. That's mainly because the eights has a coxswain leading the boat and making changes on the fly.

"In the pair it is just you and the pair partner," she said. "And each of you has much more roles delegated than just being in the middle of the boat where you just have to pull hard."

If everything goes her way, Francia will continue rowing and win another gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Hopefully, she will continue to gain recognition for rowing in the meantime.

And maybe in 2013 she can finally put her criminology degrees to work.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Chrös McDougall is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.