41-year-old Musnicki to make rowing history in Paris

So here was Meghan Musnicki, a college freshman, walking through the athletics offices at St. Lawrence one day on her way to see the basketball coach about playing on the team, when a coach from another sport stuck his head out his door and asked to have a word.

Actually, these words: "C'mere. You should try rowing."

One problem, she replied. "I don't know what that is."

Oh, but she would learn. Twenty-three years, five world championships and two Olympic gold medals later, she can look back on that moment of serendipity with a strong conviction and gratitude she didn't walk down a different hallway that day: "Turns out it was a good decision to give it a try. I feel like that's kind of the definition of life, right? The decisions you make guide you to certain paths, depending if you go right here or you go left there, you decide this or you decide that. That's the experience and fun of it.

She has continued to go right here and left there to this very summer, when she is headed to Paris for her fourth Olympic Games rowing with the women's eight. Musnicki is 41 and will be the oldest American woman ever to compete in the event. From London to Rio to Tokyo to Paris, she has kept rolling along, like Ol' Woman River. 

 "It's kind of hard to articulate what it means. This has been a large part of my life since I started rowing my freshman year in college," she said. "It's helped shape who I am as an adult. I've experienced some incredible highs and some incredible lows. It's an amazing experience that I'm incredibly grateful for. It's an opportunity that not many people get, and I've been lucky enough to live it for the better part of the last 15 years."

Not that it's been easy. Especially in 2024, when time itself has become an adversary.

"For one, I'm 41 years old competing against women that are in their mid-20s and early 30s.  It's also challenging from a social perspective in the sense that I'm married now, I have a life that is out in the San Francisco Bay area. My husband is out there, my two cats are out there, my home is out there, my job (in technology) was out there. You kind of uproot that to be a part of this. It's challenging, but it's a choice. I made that choice. It wasn't like a sacrifice I made, it was a decision I made, and it's worth it to me to do it."

Besides, when not practicing she can always describe to her Gen Z teammates what the world was like without X or TikTok. Or how Paris Disneyland started, since it's just down the road from the rowing venue.

"There's a woman in our boat that's 23, there's a woman that's 24. I'm like 17 years older than these women," she said. "We rib each other, and it's all good-natured. They keep me youthful. I like to think sometimes I keep them in line, but they don't need it too much. Some of their vernacular I'm not too well-versed in, but they're teaching me, so I'm becoming very hip — which is not in their vernacular, for what it's worth."

So continues a journey that has been a series of curves in the river.

No, her sport in college would not be basketball, as she originally thought. Goodbye hardwood, hello water. She liked that rowing was something new. "I love being part of a team. Rowing — and I know it's overused, but it is kind of the epitome of a team sport," she said. "There are no singular superstars in it. A good boat is an incredibly cohesive group, and it's fun to develop that." 

No, she wouldn't even stay at St. Lawrence. After her father died suddenly of a heart attack, she transferred to Ithaca to be closer to home. It was there she would have her college glory.

No, she wouldn't be going into nursing school as planned, because rowing was becoming a major focus in her life, one stroke at a time, especially when she was a member of the Division III rowing national champion teams in 2004 and 2005. Neonatal nursing had been her passion. "That is still a part of that in me — the interest in that — but I don't think I'm going to pursue it when I'm done rowing," she said. "That would have been a completely different life. But then I wouldn't have met my husband."

No, she wouldn't be entering the working world after graduation, even if that may have been the thinking while she made extra money as a waitress in a natural food restaurant in Northampton, Massachusetts. There was something called a USA national rowing team that would soon draw her attention and energy. "It seems like a lifetime ago. It's crazy to think about," she said. "I still talk to the (restaurant) owners to this day. They cheer me on and support me."

No, she wouldn't just storm onto the national team. Three times she tried, three times she didn't make it, though each attempt was closer. But she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"I think anyone who has lofty goals and lofty aspirations encounters setbacks and moments where I don't know if I can do this or I don't know if I want to do this," Musnicki said. "It's never a steady, straight path. You have ups and downs, good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks."

And moments when quitting seemed the right thing to do. "Multiple times," she said. It would take work, resiliency, grit. "I think I have a fair amount of that, so it suited me well." 

By 2010, she was in the USA boat for the women's eight, just when that crew was putting together a dynasty. Gold medals and world championships began to pile high. She was one of the strongest rowers, hence the nickname Moose. For more than seven years, they never lost. Musnicki stepped away from the sport after Rio 2016 but then came back.  Same thing after Tokyo 2021. By then there was a husband, a career to start and hobbies from baking cookies to completing 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles. Seemed like a good time to retire.

Except…

Her husband, Skip Kielt, coaches at a California rowing club that's a pipeline to the Olympics, so she was still around the world of competitive rowing. She was also exercising regularly with friend and Australian rower Jess Morrison, and someone suggested they compete in the prestigious Royal Henley Regatta in 2022. "Just go over and have fun" was the general idea, she said. "And that's what we did."

They also won. 

"That kind of made me miss it and also made me realize how much I love competing and exposed me to the fact that I could still do it. That's when the seed was planted."

One thing led to another, and here she is for one final Olympic moment, too Moose-headed not to take one more fling.

The Americans are no longer unbeatable — the women's eight finished fourth in Tokyo — but that doesn't mean the dreams can't be big. Musnicki said a successful Games would be "putting together the best race that we can do and racing with no fear and no presumed expectations."

It's also a chance to say goodbye to the Olympics and take time to reflect on how it all started, where it's all ending, and the legacy she will leave behind.

 "I've been doing that a lot because it is my last one," she said. "I'm excited for what's to come, but at the same time it's a huge part of my life. I'm closing a chapter in a book.  It has bittersweet moments, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

"Obviously, the rowing portion is a big part of my life, but I'm also someone outside of the sport of rowing. I guess when I stop and think about, if I can leave a legacy behind, it's that hard work and grit and determination can really propel you forward. And you shouldn't put limits on yourself.

"Someone on Instagram made a post about how inspired she was by me. If I can have that effect in people, … like young girls who look at me and think, 'She wasn't the fastest or the strongest or the x-y-z-est, but she was still able to go out and fight for and achieve her goals,' that's like icing on the cake. That's what it's all about. That's the bigger picture to me."

She would have made a fine nurse. Probably a pretty good basketball player, too. Fate had other ideas, and so did Meghan Musnicki.