Wall of fame rower had one regret

Sunday’s Welland Sports Wall of Fame induction ceremony was a great day for 2024 inductee Lauren Aiello.

“I feel so honoured to be inducted along with such amazing athletes, builders and coaches. I am so amazed and so grateful to be a part of this wall,” the 29-year-old Welland native said. “It means everything. It is such an incredible experience. I have worked so hard in my sport and it is so wonderful to be recognized in this way in front of my family and friends. It doesn’t just feel like my award. There have been so many people and mentors in my life who have brought me here and they deserved to be recognized too.”

The 2013 Welland Female Athlete of the Year started her rowing career at Notre Dame before transferring to E.L. Crossley for her Grade 12 and 12B years. With the Fonthill high school, she recorded victories at the Stotesbury Cup, Canadian Secondary Schools Rowing Association championships and English Henley, earning herself a full-ride scholarship at the University of Central Florida.

She rowed in stern of UCF’s varsity eight for her entire career and helped her team capture three straight American Athletic Conference crowns. She led the boat to program-best 18th-place finishes at the NCAA championships in 2015 and 2017.

Individually, Aiello was: a three-time team MVP; First Team All-American Athletic Conference from 2014 to 2017; and, All-Academic Team member in 2016 and 2017.

Her three straight MVP awards rank as the highlight of her career.

“That was huge to me because I always strived to be a good friend and teammate on and off the water. I tried to be a good leader and it was great to be recognized by my teammates.”

To this day, she is quick to recall the one regret in her athletic career.

“My biggest disappointment was my 2K (two-kilometre erg time) which is a big deal in rowing. Everyone asks what your 2K is in rowing,” she said. “In my third and fourth year I got to 7.0004 (seven minutes and .0004 seconds) and my coach was ‘That’s it. We are going to do another round of 2Ks and the last one you are going to break seven minutes.’ I got 7.0004 again and I never broke seven.”

It was a tough pill to swallow because a time under seven minutes would have given Aiello First Team All-American status.

“It was a goal of mine and I never got it.”

It would be the last time, she was on an erg.

“It was a lot of hard work for my four years and I decided I would be done with rowing after my last year.”

Her rowing career was a labour of love.

“It is not for everyone and sometimes I wondered how I did it because I don’t like mornings or getting up early but I did.”

She would practise in the morning for three hours and lift weights or run in the afternoon.

“It was almost four or five hours a day of work and you would put your head down and grind. It was so monotonous and then you would go to regattas where you had one shot, two kilometres to show all of that work. All the hard work would come to fruition in those seven minutes and it was a very rewarding sport.”

Aiello, who is now a French teacher with the Niagara Catholic District School Board, has taken many of the lessons learned from her rowing career into her personal and professional life.

“It’s grit, respect and time management. I viewed my sport at the time as a full-time job because that is all I was doing for hours a day. Now in my career working with students, it’s being a role model for them, showing them resiliency and trying to push them out of their comfort zones because I was always a shy kid. Seeing their fears and trying to help them overcome them can be challenging.”

Aiello had countless coaches and mentors help her along the way and her parents, Dominic and Cristina, were crucial to her accomplishments.

“What didn’t they do? I am an only child and my dad was big into hockey in Welland and I was sure he wanted me to play,” she said. “I started rowing in Grade 9 and I definitely had a love/hate relationship with the sport but my parents were always supportive of me. They never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to do and they were very encouraging.”

Her mom also drove her to early-morning practices and her dad gave her advice from his career as a scholarship athlete.

“They took me to all the regattas and I had a lot of disappointments and failures in my high school career. That is why I persevered and later on became successful in college. They were everything and they dropped everything for me.”

This year’s induction ceremony will be broadcast on YourTV Niagara Friday, May 10 at 7 p.m., Saturday, May 11 at 9 a.m. and Sunday, May 12 at 1 p.m.