Risa Petty is not only one of Kansas University’s top athletes, she’s one of the school’s best students, as well.
Petty, a KU senior rower out of Lawrence High, has a 4.0 grade point average.
Petty’s effort in the classroom and in the boat makes her a strong contender for Jayhawk women’s scholar athlete of the year, to be revealed at Monday’s awards presentation at the Lied Center.
“A lot of times I feel my head will explode or my mom will say, ‘I don’t see how you do it,”‘ Petty said, laughing, referring to late-night studies. “I think my teachers see how tired I am in class and feel sorry for me.”
Petty, a member of KU’s varsity eight boat the past four years and one of the captains of this year’s team, says she nearly slipped to a B on a couple of occasions.
“I might have thought I had a B. I don’t know if I was overreacting,” said Petty, a Social Welfare and Human Development and Family Life major. “I’ve talked to teachers after the semester a couple of times to see (how close she came to a B). They’d look at me like I was a fool.”
Petty, a two-time KU Indoor champion and team-record holder for the rowing ergometer, compiled a 3.98 GPA at Lawrence High. That calculates to three B’s to go with all A’s.
“I’m not bitter at all. In ninth grade when I went to Russia (for school trip) I had A’s in two classes and came back and got B’s,” she said. “And I had a B in 10th grade honors English. That’s a tough course, ask anybody.”
A standout softball player at LHS, Petty has made her mark in rowing, a sport she first learned in college.
“I never knew there was a team until the summer before (arriving at KU),” Petty said. “I called Rob Catloth (head coach) on the phone and he told me where tryouts were. I showed up for tryouts and wasn’t the tallest, but I made the team.”
The 5-10 Petty has been a factor ever since.
She’s one of the top rowers on KU’s first varsity eight boat, ranked 22nd in the country heading into the NCAA Central Regional Championships May 13-14 in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Members of that boat consist of seniors Petty, Nikia Rosenberger, Tara Lynn, Abby Rosdahl, Sarah Canfield, Laura Hubert, Keesha Cravens, Lettie Ebbs, plus junior Heather Muir.
The rowers have been together a long time.
“I always thought softball was a team sport, but it is not half the team sport rowing is,” Petty said. “You can have individual errors in softball and win. In rowing, you are completely dependent on the other eight people. You must work together or not achieve anything.
“We are hoping to get our whole team to nationals (by having KU’s two eights and four boat finish in the top three at regionals). If we can’t get the whole team in, we want the first eight in. I’m confident we can make it.
“These are people who come to practice every day and work hard ever day and being around Rob so long, understand the technical things. It’s great to be part of a boat so powerful and focused.”
“We’ve definitely improved over last year and the year before. We raced USC (April 29 in California) and only lost by 3 seconds to them. Last year they beat us by 12 seconds. We ran the best race of our lives against one of the best teams in the country.”
It’s safe to say KU’s rowers receive the least amount of publicity of any team at KU. That’s OK by Petty who understands the sport is a bit complicated.
“It’s fun to have people ask about it,” Petty said. “Whenever I get somebody to come to one of our races, they always say they enjoyed it. They see it and get into it and wonder why they didn’t get into it before.”
