Caroline Alderfer is leaving Monday for Europe to learn more about two things she has a passion for - rowing and leadership.
Those passions have developed in her over the last three years at Culver Girls Academy.
“I’m going to a coxswain leadership program in Amsterdam in the Netherlands this summer for two weeks,” the 18-year-old from Winona Lake said in an interview Friday.
A coxswain is a steersman of a boat. Alderfer, who will be a senior this fall at Culver Girls Academy, has been on the school’s rowing team since her freshman year.
“It was a little bit of an admissions process,” she explained about getting the opportunity to attend The Coxswain Leadership Program. “I first had to write about five essays, kind of about what I want to work on with my coxing, and then also just what I see as my goals, etc. And then after that, I got selected to be interviewed and I was interviewed, and then after that I received an email that I was accepted into the program.”
She said there were only six slots available, but when she was applying herself that was down to two with four people vying for those two spots.

    Caroline Alderfer (back) has been on the rowing team at Culver Girls Academy since her freshman year. She’s leaving Monday to attend a coxswain leadership program in Amsterdam. Photo Provided.
  

At the leadership program, Alderfer said she’ll be really focusing on racing I.Q., learning adaptability and learning on how to focus with different crews “and specifically will be coxing masters, which is typically older people that have already graduated college, but also the Dutch Junior Team and just juniors from America. So I’ll be coxing a lot of different people while also just focusing in on a race and being able to make quick decisions, which I have to do in a race anyways.”
She’ll also get to cox in their Dutch International Youth Regatta, which is their junior national championship.
“So I’m just excited to also get racing experience in that sense, too,” she said.
Alderfer is looking forward to not only the challenges the program will provide, but also about learning about another culture and how they do rowing.
“I’m more excited about the challenge than nervous about it,” she stated.
Explaining how she got into rowing in the first place her freshman year, she said, “I guess I just decided that it was time to start a new sport. My tour guide, actually, at Culver was like, ‘Hey, maybe you should try rowing.’”
Alderfer decided to give it a chance as she didn’t have a sport for that fall season. She fell in love with rowing and kept doing it.
“I think the first thing for me was the team. I just loved our environment and we all just wanted to go fast and go together,” she stated.
Alderfer started as a rower, which is the person actually taking a stroke, and she loved the physical workout. Then during her sophomore year season, she became a coxswain, which, she explained, is the person who manages the boat and is the leader. She steers the boat, makes sure it’s safe and also gives commands to the rowers.
“So I really loved doing that just because it puts me in a leadership position, but then I can also really connect with the girls in the boat to help them figure out what they need to do to go faster,” Alderfer said.
In an eight-person boat, she’s the person sitting in the back. In a four-person boat, she’s in the front “and then underneath almost.” Her team typically prioritizes the four-person boat, so during the spring season and for the Midwestern championships she was in a four. During practice, she may be in a four- or eight-person boat.
“I like an eight because I can see the rowers and I feel the connection. But I also love a four - it helps with steering because you can see directly out, and it’s almost like a smaller close-knit family,” she said.
Her team has three to four regattas in the fall and about four in the spring.
They placed at the Kensington Sprints in April. She was the coxswain for two boats at that race, and the eight-person boat in the junior category got first. The four-person boat medaled in the junior category in second place.
“We’re definitely trying to pick up some more speed and hopefully next year we can kind of work together to get to that next level and try to get to some more national championships,” Alderfer said.
During her time at Culver Girls Academy, she’s been focused on leadership.
“It’s something that I want to do just to make the world a better place. I want to have a positive impact on whatever team or environment that is. And one of those big environments for me is the rowing team, and ... I’m almost an extensive of the coach in the boat, and I have to make sure that what the coach wants to happen is actually happening. So I just do that by building the connections with the people and working with them to see what they need to work on. And that’s definitely something that I’ve kind of taken away from the boat that I use in my leadership outside of the boat,” Alderfer said.
After graduating from Culver, Caroline, the daughter of Alan and Kristine Alderfer, hopes to be recruited as an athlete by college or university.
“I’m currently talking to about nine schools now, and most of them are high- academic schools that also have Division I rowing. So, hopefully, in the fall, or spring, during my senior year I will sign and hopefully be a coxswain in college next year, as a recruited athlete,” she stated.
Asked if the Olympics were in her future, she responded, “I’m not sure! We’ll see!”