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Fort Recovery's Paige Guggenbiller, seated center, signed a national letter of intent on Monday to row at Ohio State. With her in the front row are Noah Guggenbiller, Fort Recovery swim coach Mindy Bubp and Katie and Lucy Guggenbiller. Standing behind them are Andrew, Sophia, Chris, Adeline and Bo Guggenbiller.
Fort Recovery's Paige Guggenbiller committed to Ohio State on Monday to compete in a sport she's never tried.
Guggenbiller, who was a three-sport athlete in volleyball, swimming and track for the Indians, is joining the Buckeyes' rowing team despite never picking up an oar.
"The way recruiting works for rowing, it's mainly athletes in general that have a good aerobic base," she said. "Mainly swimmers, because they're in the water, it translates pretty well. Then in the beginning of the fall, that's when they begin to train these once-swimmers into being rowers, on erg machines (ergometers, i.e., rowing machines)."
Even swimming is relatively new for Guggenbiller, who focused on volleyball from the age of 11. She took up swimming three years ago, but wasn't interested in pursuing it further.
But she said her coaches at Fort Recovery had discussed the possibility to switching to rowing with her, and that idea was more intriguing.
"It seems like a new experience I would enjoy doing," she said.
Guggenbiller had been considering looking for schools to continue in volleyball, but said she felt a little burnt out at the end of her high school career and preferred to switch to club.
In early December, Ohio State's staff reached out to her, and she went up on an official visit in the middle of January.
"It was pretty cool, to say the least," she said. "It was impressive because it once belonged to a rowing club - so it wasn't part of Ohio State at first, but now they share it - and it was already in really nice condition. It felt like it was in the middle of a park. It felt like a part of nature, which is funny to say."
For now, her only training remains the rowing machine at Fort Recovery. She said she expects to get a formal workout plan from the Ohio State coaches for the summer.
Guggenbiller also considered Dayton and Cincinnati, but said the Buckeyes' staff particularly impressed her and helped to decide the issue.
"Even though there's so many people in Ohio they could've sought out, they made it feel very personal, that they wanted me on the team," she said. "The coaches talked about taking care of their athletes a lot, and I think that's something cool about Ohio State. They really seem to care about their athletes, their health, and their mental health and their academics as well."
Guggenbiller plans to major in marketing with a minor in real estate.
Ohio State, entering its fifth season under coach Kate Sweeney, has been to the NCAA Championships the last three years, placing 12th last spring. The Buckeyes opened the season Saturday with a win and four second-place finishes behind Yale in the Big Ten/Ivy League Duals in Camden, New Jersey.
Guggenbiller is the second Fort Recovery swimmer to land with a Division I rowing program. Rachel Kaup walked on at Duquesne in 2016 and eventually became team captain.
