The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Mantay a strong rower for EMU
By Jon Machota, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: July 24, 2008
At Grosse Ile High School extracurricular activities are an important part of the high school experience.
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It's a place were you make friends, study together and play together, too.
For some Grosse Ile athletes the choice is track or soccer or football. For many others it's rowing.
Six former Red Devil female athletes who chose to row are still at it.
The six - Allison Duffy, Ashley Wenneman, Sarah Schmidt, Kellie LaPointe, Laura Mantay and Theresa Shields - all graduated within five years of each other and all are Division 1 collegiate rowers.
Duffy, Wenneman, Schmidt and LaPointe all went to Michigan State University where they are coached by another former Grosse Ile High School athlete, Matt Weise.
Shields also rows in the Big 10 at the University of Wisconsin and Mantay rows at Eastern Michigan University.
The Spartan rowers, who helped MSU to a Big 10 and Central Regional championships this season, naturally see a lot of each other.
But they see their other former high school teammates at plenty of meets, too.
"It's really great to compete with them and see them improve," said EMU's Mantay.
Mantay is going in her senior year and is majoring in journalism. After college she doesn't plan on rowing any more.
At EMU, she rowed in the first varsity eight and posted fifth-place finish in the grand finals of the Aramark Sprints in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Mantay said she came to rowing in a roundabout way, trying many other sports before she found her niche.
"I use to play basketball and realize that I was never good," Mantay said.
Wisconsin's Shields, an all-academic performer, runs into her former high school mates at Big Ten competitions and she said that while it is fun to see old friends, once you see them in an enemy boat things change a little.
"It's weird competing against them," Shield admitted.
After college, Shields said plans on teaching secondary education in mathematics.
Teaching and mathematics are her plan, but hopes and dreams can be something entirely different.
"My dream is to be on the national team," Shield said.
If that doesn't happen, Shields said she would consider coaching rowing.
While Mantay and Shields struck out on their own, Duffy, Wenneman, Schmidy and LaPointe have formed a little islander of islanders, so to speak, at MSU.
Their coach is Weise, who graduated from Grosse Ile back in 1987.
"They all very good rowers and very consistent," he said.
The Grosse Ile presence in East Lansing will grow by one next year when new recruit, Michele Neuder, arrives on campus,
"(Grosse Ile) produces good rowers, but that doesn't mean we're only looking at Grosse Ile for rowers," said Weise, who has been MSU's head coach for four years.
This year the 37-member Michigan State women's rowing team had members from Michigan, California, New York, Pennsylvania and Montana, in addition to six rowers from Canadian provinces.
Schmidt, who is going in her senior year at MSU, lives with sophomore-to-be Lapointe.
What's a better teammate to live with then one that you have rowed with since high school?
When students move away to college, rarely do they go to with friends and even more rarely do they live together.
Having an old fried close at had is great, Schmidt said. And having more on your team is even better.
"It's nice knowing that you know people there," Schmidt said.
Schmidt clearly has fallen head-over-heels for rowing and while the other talks about the national team or coaching futures, she has something else in mind.
"I am going to keep rowing just for fun," said Schmidt, who is in the midst of getting her degree for special education.
Lapointe, who just finished her freshman season, still has a lot of college rowing to do.
Lapointe was in the second varsity eight boat for most of her freshman year.
As the youngest of the four Grosse Ile girls at MSU, LaPointe said she walked right into a great situation.
"It was an easy transition," she said.
As for competing against other Grosse Ile grads at other schools, LaPointe doesn't find it weird at all. If fact, rowing against old Red Devils really gets the competitive juices flowing.
"You just can't lose to old teammates," she said.
Lapointe is majoring in biochemistry and is planning on applying to medical school once she is done.
Wenneman is a senior-to-be and she is also pursuing a teaching degree. Like many of the other rowers, she hopes to pass on her knowledge one day as a rowing coach.
Wenneman was boatmates this season with the other member of the Grosse Ile contingent, Duffy. The pair rowed as part of the Varsity 4 crew.
Duffy has been rowing for eight years. She is majoring in business and management.
Duffy said the Grosse Ile group has brought with it to East Lansing some of its sometimes-goofy traditions.
"We sing and dance at the starting line," Duffy said. "We have stupid chants," she said. "It's hysterical."
Weise agreed
"They all do a bunch of crazy stuff," he admitted.
But crazy stuff aside, MSU has an excellent program and the 2007-8 season was an exceptional one.
It starts with Weise, who this season was named Central Regional Coach of the Year.
Having just completed his fourth season as head coach, Weise has continued to develop a nationally-recognized program over the past two years.
This year's Big Ten championship is the second for the team under Weise and its sixth-place finish at the NCAA championships in Rancho Cordova, Calif. earlier this month tied the best performance ever by an MSU women's team. Weise's 2006 Spartans also finished sixth at the NCAAs.
In 2004-2005, Weise's first season as head of the program, he led the team to its first ever Big Ten championship, while being recognized as the Big Ten Coach of the Year and the Central Region's Coach of the Year.
A former Grosse Ile High School and MSU rower, Weise spent four years rowing for the MSU club team, while completing his undergraduate degree.
He began helping with the novice team following his freshman year, and helped with novice until graduation took him back to Grosse Ile, where he spent the 1992-93 school year teaching ninth-grade physical science.
After a one-year break from coaching, Weise returned to MSU and began coaching the mens' and womens' club teams fulltime.
Three years later, in 1996, he wrote the proposal that eventually elevated the women's program to a varsity sport.
After the hiring of former head coach Bebe Bryans, Weise was named assistant.
During his seven years as assistant, MSU was selected to compete at the NCAA Championships each season.
While the Grosse Ile-born coach has been a standout, the individual Grosse Ile rowers have been impressive, too.
Schmidt, who was named Central Regiona Coaches Association Scholar of the Year in 2007, was part of MSU's Varsity 8 boat this season.
That boat won a Big Ten title and finished sixth at the NCAAs.
Wenneman and Duffy were each part of the Varsity 4 this season and that boat won a Big Ten championship and finished fifth at the NCAAs.
As a team, MSU won the Big 10 title with a record-tying 150 points, well ahead of second-place Wisconsin, which had 114.
The Spartans then went on to match their highest ever finish at the NCAAs with a sixth.
It has been quite a ride and the Grosse Ile girls acknowledge that.
Whether they've been together a long time or a short one, Schmidt said she knows one thing:
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