Catherine Campbell is one of those athletes who seems to be naturally inclined to enjoy success in her sport. Two years ago, she never had rowed in her life. Now, after graduating from SMU this weekend, Campbell is headed to the USRowing Women’s National Team Pre-Elite Camp for the second time in as many years.

The camp runs from June 6 through July 18 at the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia. Campbell is one of just 18 college rowers invited to the camp, the purpose of which is to develop athletes for the Under-23 and Senior National Teams.

Catherine Campbell has rowed for just two years, but has been invited to the USRowing Women’s National Team Pre-Elite Camp after each season (photo by visualQ Photography).

In addition to her diploma, Campbell also earned All-Conference USA honors over the weekend. That she is in a position to compete for a spot on the National Teams is remarkable, considering her path to her current position.

Campbell signed to come to SMU in 2006 … to play basketball. But after two seasons on the hardwood, she found herself drawn in another direction.

“I had talked with some friends about rowing,” she said. “I thought about rowing in the offseason, so I went to see Doug (Wright, SMU’s rowing coach).”

Wright said that at first glance, Campbell was intriguing.

“I remember when she came through my door,” Wright said. “She’s tall (6-foot-2), she’s athletic. I told her ‘what you get out of rowing is what you’re willing to put into it.’ She was OK with that.”

So with SMU women’s basketball head coach Rhonda Rompola’s blessing, Campbell switched to the rowing team.

Campbell began working with the rowing coaches on the ergometer, the indoor rowing machines found in many gyms. The ergometer — or “erg” — is used to determine the power and speed a rower can generate, based on the times they register when pulling 2,000 meters. Campbell recently lowered her best time to 7:14, less than a second off the fastest time on the SMU team (and a six-second improvement over her last personal record).

Rowing is an extraordinarily rigorous sport, with its competitors taking in and processing more oxygen than athletes in any other sport aside from cross-country skiing. It also is a sport in which elite athletes are identified from within a group of four or eight competitors doing the exact same things. Though still in the early stages of her rowing career, Campbell has twice showed the promise to earn her invitations to the Pre-Elite Camp.

Last year’s camp was held at Indiana University; following this summer’s camp, Campbell will enroll at IU, where she will compete for the Hoosiers for one season as a graduate student pursuing a degree in sport management.

“I’m really happy for her,” Wright said. “I’m happy that this was the place where she could realize her potential, and that we have a system in place here that allows her to reach her potential. She got a good taste last year, and she’ll get an even better taste this year.”

Campbell began rowing without any experience, but she has ideal height — most of the rowers on the U.S. National Team are over six feet tall — and some knowledge of the sport; she has family members who rowed at Princeton and Brown.

“I wanted to stay at SMU, and my family knew how much I love SMU,” she said. “Doug took a real chance on me, letting me row for him.”

Campbell said that beginning the process of learning her new sport recharged her competitive batteries.

“I felt like a little kid again,” she said. “I was learning something new, and I enjoy that process. You have to love the game in order to do it, and learned to love it really quickly. We get up at 5:30 in the morning, and it hurts, so you’ve got to be a little crazy to do what we do. But we love it.”

Campbell joined the rowing team in April 2008, but didn’t compete with her new team until the fall, when her improving technique and her erg scores earned her a spot in the Mustangs’ top eight boat.

“That’s one thing I love about rowing — there are no stars,” Campbell said. “Everyone is the same. It’s the ultimate team sport.”

Campbell signed with SMU to play basketball before switching to the rowing team (photo by SMU athletics).

That may be, but in just two years in the sport, Campbell has shown enough that she has earned two Pre-Elite Camp invitations. The camps teach sculling (in which rowers use two oars; many teams focus solely on having their rowers row on one side of the boat), focus on small boats, stress improved fitness and increased strength-to-weight ratio. The athletes will train in both small, sculling boats as well as the larger eights and fours and will race throughout the six-week duration of the camp. The athletes will train at Vesper, and will have the chance to race at the Independence Day Regatta, the USRowing Club National Championships and perhaps the USRowing Under-23 Trials and USRowing Elite National Championships. Wright said he expects Campbell to excel.

“When she gets into that environment with other women who train at that level, she’ll do really well,” he said. “We’re working hard to get to that level here, and we’re getting there. But Catherine is a focused athlete who is pretty driven, and I expect her to thrive in an environment where everyone has dreams of making it to national team selection camp.

“Rowing has so many life metaphors,” Campbell said. “You control only what you can control — you can’t control other people. You get what you give. So much of it is pushing past pain.”

The mantra of sacrifice for the team never was more evident than this past weekend, when Campbell missed her own graduation to row with her team at the NCAA Regional Qualifiers in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Campbell and the Mustangs won the “D” Qualifier the same weekend that she earner her All-Conference USA status.

Now, as she prepares for her next challenge, Campbell remains grateful to Wright and his staff.

“They didn’t have to take me,” she said. “I’m very blessed that they took a chance on me, and that I was able to convince them I was a chance worth taking. They’ve done so much for me. No matter where I’m rowing, I’ll always bleed red and blue.”