Hunter Kappel Goes It Alone

Ask the average male teenager what sport he’d like to play at the collegiate level and rowing probably wouldn’t make the top 20. But Saint Edward’s senior Hunter Kappel is not your average teenager. Rowing has been his number one sport for the past five years. “I couldn’t live without it,” he says.

To reinforce the point, Kappel tells a story about how he spent time studying abroad last summer in Beijing. Since he wasn’t able to row, the former cross-country runner ran to keep in shape. “Then I started getting a pain in my chest. Once I got back home and started rowing again, it went away,” he says.  “It was from the stress. I couldn’t do all that I do without rowing.”

All that Kappel does includes competing in singles rowing on a state and national level, placing second in the Florida State Rowing Championships in April, third in the Southeast Regional Championships in May, and 18th in the U.S. Rowing Youth National Championships in June.

Read the entire article in the January 2010 issue