FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The #NSU50 "Top Moments in NSU Athletics History" continues with the 18th moment on the list: Nova Southeastern rower Jennifer Rembe becomes the school's first female NCAA All-American. 
Starting her collegiate career at NSU as a volleyball player, Rembe took an unprecedented route to becoming an All-American. Playing four seasons of volleyball, she collected 359 career kills including a career-high 163 her senior season in 2003. With one year of athletic eligibility left, Rembe joined NSU's first-year rowing program in 2004 and was one of 18 athletes of the team. Fortunately for Rembe, learning to row after a long career in another sport was a common theme among her teammates.
 
"The transition from volleyball to rowing was about the craziest 180 degree turn I could make as an athlete," stated Rembe. "The only thing those two sports have in common is that they are both sports requiring some form of athleticism. I can't even tell you what I was thinking when I decided to stroll into the coaches' office to ask to try out because I had never rowed before, never sat on a rowing machine, nor had I even saw a racing shell in person before. I just knew that when volleyball was over I was not ready to be done competing in athletics, and randomly in passing I was alerted to the addition of rowing to the NSU athletic program.
 
"So, I went to Coach John Gartin's office and asked to try out for the team. Luckily, coach Gartin said yes, and I met the team at 4:30 a.m. the next morning to try out the rowing machine for the first time. The teams' coxswain, Cheyenne Poskey, was the first to explain the basic proper form on the erg, which was then followed by a 20 minute row. I was hooked by the end of my first practice."

"Jen was that special physical spark that we needed in that first year of the program," said Gartin. "Although she was a novice that first and only year on the team, she had been a four year volleyball player at NSU and was a certified 'Gym Rat.' She brought an element of older mature leadership and more importantly a huge physical presence – she loved to workout. Her physical strength, work ethic and mental toughness were examples that the rest of the team looked at as the bar to reach."

Rembe took to the water and flourished. On Oct. 25, 2003, Rembe led the Knights to a win at the First Coast Head Race in the program's first-ever competition.

"We started off rowing novice races, as a new team would do, and in our first event we took home the first place prize finishing more than a minute faster than the second place boat," stated Rembe. "This set the pace and the standard for the rest of the season. February 28, 2004 is when the team resumed racing in the spring. Our Novice 8 and Varsity 4 boats put up first place finishes then. On March 6 at the Rollins Invitational we delivered a strong showing taking home first place in the varsity-4, the novice-4 and the novice-8. This was a day where we really put forth all the energy we could muster. In the varsity-4, fellow teammate Katrina Bonilla caught a "crab" with about ten strokes remaining in the race, but we still pulled out a first place finish. And with 20 strokes remaining in the novice-8, my seat slid off the tracks so I could only row the remainder of the race with my arms and core and basically no legs! But again, we sprinted the end so hard we pulled out another first place finish.
 
"After this regatta, and the Miami Invitational where our novice-4 and both novice-8 boats took home first place, we decided to start rowing a Varsity 8 boat. As a first-year program, with everything to prove and absolutely nothing to lose, coach made this bold decision when other collegiate programs put the word out that with the novice boats doing so well, why wouldn't we try racing varsity-8's? And so we did. At the Stetson Invitational on March 20, we did just that. This was an extremely memorable regatta for me racing in the varsity-8 boat. We took home first place in what I recall as the best race of our season thus far. Our strength and technical rowing were dead on, and with the hardest 500+ meter sprint I have ever done on a machine or on the water, we edged out Jacksonville University by seven tenths of a second for the first place win. I can't remember exactly how long it took to get results back from the photo finish, but it felt like an eternity of anxious excitement, and when we got the results our team absolutely erupted!

"May 18 was the day we were waiting to find out if we got enough bids to take us to the National Championship. I remember we were rowing what felt like a thousand sprints with our ergs set up outside in the intense heat and bazillion percent humidity, just sweating buckets working our butts off in the hopes coach Gartin would be walking outside soon with the good news. And he did just that, and you could cut the jubilee, excitement and intensity with a butter knife."

 
The Knights made their selection to the NCAA National Championship count. Up against the best NCAA Division II had to offer, the Knights finished their run by defeating South Region powerhouse Barry in the varsity-8 petite final.
 
For her efforts, Rembe became a CRCA All-American and Scholar All-American honoree in her first and only season. Despite joining the team as a complete newcomer to the sport, Rembe helped lay the groundwork for a rowing program that has since collected six Sunshine State Conference Championships and one NCAA National Championship. 

"What made the transition from a sport with a ball to a sport with an oar a little easier was Coach Gartin's guidance, motivation and palpable love of the sport," said Rembe. "Coach Gartin had an effortless way of motivating and molding our completely inexperienced and young team, myself included. I brought strength and an intense work ethic to the table, and Coach provided the knowledge and finesse that I lacked to transform me into a true competitor and help my team become a real threat on the water.

"I typically take a leadership role in the things I do, but that is usually when it's something I know a lot about and have mastered a craft in a way that allows for teaching others and passing on knowledge. But I was just as new and young as our new young team. I believe that it was more my strength and work ethic alone that initially paved the way for me to take a leadership role. But it couldn't have been easier to lead this group of women. Every single person on the team wanted to work hard. Every person wanted to be part of the family we created. Every person wanted to win and did whatever it took to become the cohesive unit it requires to move a boat in the most efficient manner possible. I feel that I was able to create an attainable but tough goal for my fellow teammates to reach in terms of strength and pushing their bodies past the limits of what they thought was possible."

"Without her I don't think that the other women on the team would have been able to 'push' themselves just that little extra more which was the difference in many of the races in that first year," stated Gartin. "Jen and the rest of the women in that first year combined to make something special that certainly catapulted NSU rowing forward, far more and faster than would really should have in that first year."

Rembe never left the sport she fell in love with in her final year of athletic competition. She continued to master her craft after college, and in 2013, she earned a No. 1 world ranking in the female/age 30-39/hwt category.  Although recent injuries knocked her back to eighth in the world in 2014, Rembe continues to train towards breaking the world record. 

Check back with NSUSharks.com next Tuesday for the next #NSU50 "Top Moments in NSU Athletics History."

Moment No. 1: NSU Athletics is Born
Moment No. 2: Knights Chosen as School Mascot
Moment No. 3: Hansley Hired as Director of Athletics
Moment No. 4: Nova Adds Four Sports
Moment No. 5: Nova Joins NAIA
Moment No. 6: Nova Adds Three More Teams
Moment No. 7: Nova Helps Form FIAC
Moment No. 8: Nova Wins First Conference Championship
Moment No. 9: Baseball and Volleyball Win First Conference Titles
Moment No. 10: NSU Adds Softball
Moment No. 11: NSU Adds Women's Soccer and Wins FSC Tournament Championship
Moment No. 12: NSU Names Ray Ferrero Jr. as School's Fifth President
Moment No. 13: NSU Adds Women's Basketball and Wins Conference Title in First Season
Moment No. 14: NSU Jumps to NCAA Division II and Sunshine State Conference
Moment No. 15: Kyle Ruwe Becomes NSU's First NCAA All-American
Moment No. 16: NSU adds Rowing, Tennis and Men's Cross Country
Moment No. 17: NSU Breaks Ground on University Center

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