There is a certain rhythm to a boat race, a certain musicality to the sweeping of the oars. Perfectly synchronized, their arms fierce and unyielding, the women of Princeton’s heavyweight rowing team glide through Lake Carnegie with a pianissimo grace.
On the port side sits first-year recruit Devonne Piccaver. She is no newcomer to the world of rowing – the strain, the pull, the push are woven into her muscle tissue, as natural as walking or breathing – but she is a newcomer to America, to Princeton, and to the team that will train, compete, and share their lives with her over the next four years. Her world is turbulent. And yet, her strokes are always on-beat.
Extroverted, smiley, and quick to laugh, Devonne is everything that one might expect from a self-confident athlete, or a good-natured Brit. The demands of D1 rowing do nothing to dim an unmistakably fun personality – as evidenced by pink Crocs, earrings, and a t-shirt with rainbow butterflies. Together with a spirited English accent, Devonne has the type of personality that could put anyone at ease within minutes.
Devonne grew up in Peterborough, England, a mid-sized city roughly one-hundred miles north of London, in the district of Cambridgeshire. With a wry chuckle, she describes Peterborough as “pretty mediocre” and predominantly “lower middle class,” a far cry from the wealthy milieu of her new home, Princeton. Coming to one of the best universities in America was a dream come true. “Where I come from, stuff like this just doesn’t really happen,”
Even before coming to Princeton, Devonne was no stranger to elitism. Rowing, too, carries a legacy of exclusivity. There are the financial barriers, yes – equipment, travel, club membership – that contribute to the elitist nature of the sport, but there is also a somewhat ubiquitous notion that rowing is for the wealthy, the white, and the male. From the start, rowing meant breaking into a culture tainted with exclusivity.
For Devonne, this meant that opportunities to row could dry up in an instant. At 14, she was scouted by the UK’s GB Start program, who identified Devonne as having the physiological makeup of an Olympic rower; as part of the program, she trained with high-level coaches funded by the British government. But when the UK’s rowing team did poorly in the Tokyo Olympics, the money disappeared, and Devonne went back to her local club. She trained hard, but with the club’s moms and dads as volunteer coaches, progress often came slow.
Still, rowing overtook her teenage years. It became an anchor – a way of life as much as it was an extracurricular. As a young teenager, it was rowing that first pulled her from her shell. “Before I started rowing, I was very shy,” she recounts. “But I got to meet so many incredible people.” The magic, it turns out, lay in the social dimension of rowing, and the confidence boost that comes with having a “thing.” Even a stranger could tell that Devonne is really good at something. And that magic has not faded. From middle school in Peterborough, to freshman year at Princeton, rowing has always been a source of “expanded social horizons.”
Rowing also made a mark on Devonne’s academic pursuits. A few years ago, she started writing a column for Junior Rowing News, pushing against the very misconceptions about rowing that hindered her own entry into the sport. “Bias and unfairness is what has created a divide in the rowing culture,” wrote Devonne in a 2023 article, “and the gap will only continue to separate if the culture is not altered.”
It is tempting to assume that Devonne, a competitive rower at a competitive university, far from home, a first-year student, would be altogether stressed. But somehow, Devonne seems immune to stress. She has three life mottos: “Go with the flow. Take it as it comes. Everything will work out okay.” Besides an incredible talent for rowing, perhaps Devonne’s most impressive ability is that her demeanor is so relaxed, stable, and fun, even in the face of immense pressure. She has ambitious goals for the future – namely, to be an Olympic rower – but she is also happy being Devonne, spending time with her dog, going on day trips to London, and chatting with friends in the garden until 2 A.M.
The fanfare of freshman orientation is over now, and Devonne is falling into the tempo of Princeton, into the cycles of class, practice, homework – rinse and repeat. Her life will take on the rhythms of a crew race, and the intensity too. Opportunity will be closer than ever. So will Princeton’s elitism. Determination, though, has never escaped Devonne Piccaver. After all, she’s got a head start on doing well at Princeton: when the water gets choppy, just row harder.