Scholar Stories: Yasuda Leaps from Hoops to Rowing, Lands at 'Unique Opportunity'
4/29/2020 10:00:00 AM | Rowing, Features
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Prairie Farms.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite the cancellations of winter and spring sports due to COVID-19, MGoBlue.com will continue to highlight our student-athletes' stories through May 6.
By Emma Levine
It's difficult to know what the future holds, but sometimes you just have to trust yourself and make the leap.
That is something that Erika Yasuda has truly taken to heart during her time in Ann Arbor.
A senior coxswain on the University of Michigan rowing team, Yasuda grew up playing basketball and was unfamiliar with rowing before a childhood friend became a coxswain. The Sunnyvale, California, native said that she landed at Michigan kind of by chance.
"I was a point guard and had gone through two ACL tears and two ACL surgeries," she said. "I thought to myself that everything happens for a reason. I found that everything in the sports medicine field was super interesting, in terms of injury prevention, injury care and injury rehabilitation. What better way to learn more about this than to try and study kinesiology?"
Now a two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree and bronze medalist with the 2V8 boat at the 2019 NCAA Championships, Yasuda said that when she was researching all the different kinesiology programs around the country, Michigan's School of Kinesiology -- and specifically the movement science program -- really stuck out to her. She said that at the time she was not planning on leaving California for college, but that the program itself convinced her to apply.
"I just felt that it was time for change," she said. "I was excited to find my home at Michigan and do something that I felt really confident about, movement science. I didn't even know anyone who came to school here, but I knew that I'd get a unique experience and that I'd grow."
And what a unique experience she got. After arriving in Ann Arbor for her freshman year, Yasuda was approached by the rowing coaches while they were recruiting on campus. Yasuda said she actually was looking to join a club basketball team on campus, but jumped at the chance to compete for the Wolverines at the varsity level.
Yasuda first joined the program on the novice team. She spent time learning the ins and outs of the sport and the responsibilities of the coxswain, which include coaching the athletes during practice and giving out the race plans via microphone in the boat during competition. Shortly, Yasuda said, the varsity team needed another coxswain in one of its boats.
"I jumped into a varsity boat and before I even knew it, I was racing at Big Tens and nationals in the 1V4 boat," she said. "I had to learn a lot in a short period of time, but I think learning everything so quickly really allowed me a chance to immediately transfer all that knowledge I learned in my first year into the research I started doing in school during my second year."
In addition to her rowing, Yasuda's research has been another main focus for her at U-M.
For the past few years, Yasuda has been working alongside School of Kinesiology professor Dr. James Bodary on wearable technology research. Specifically, she has been performing research with her rowing teammates using a pair of leggings that track their muscle activity.
"I started doing research with the leggings with just a few teammates to start, just to see what kinds of muscles were being activated at what points of the rowing stroke, and just trying to figure out what I could do with that data," she said. "It was really trial and error at first."
Yasuda said that thanks to Dr. Bodary, she was able to collaborate with Athos, the company that makes the technology, in completing her research. Now, Yasuda and the rowing team use the leggings to help perfect their strokes.
"I'm able to sit down with each athlete and discover what kind of habits they have in the rowing stroke," she said. "By knowing exactly how they perform inside on the erg machines, I could translate that into what they were doing in the boat, which I thought was the coolest thing. It gave me a totally different perspective as a coxswain."
Another opportunity that Yasuda has been afforded at U-M is being a part of the Intraoperative Neuromonitoring Program (IONM) within the School of Kinesiology. Thanks to the program, Yasuda has a job lined up for after graduation, and she will be moving to Dallas, Texas.
"IONM gave me the opportunity to work at the U-M hospital and do clinical rotations so that I'm prepared to start working in the field right after I graduate," she said. "I know that I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for this program, so I'm very grateful."
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Yasuda's final semester at U-M has been disrupted and her final rowing season for the Maize and Blue was canceled.
"I would call it heartbreak," she said, describing finding out her team's season was not to be. "Growing up, I never really felt that kind of heartbreak except for when I got injured, and that heartbreak was all about me. This time, it was crazy to feel the heartbreak all around the room with all of my teammates."
Yasuda said that the abrupt end to the 2020 campaign has been especially upsetting since she saw big things for the Wolverines for the upcoming season.
"It was tough because we knew that we had a great season ahead of us," she said. "We knew that we could've won Big Tens and placed at NCAAs. We had this feeling all throughout our team that we were going to do something big this season."
Despite not being able to compete with each other any longer, Yasuda said that the team has been finding other ways to stay in touch and foster a sense of family. She said that the underclassmen planned a surprise for their graduating seniors before leaving Ann Arbor.
"Right before everyone left, we had a mini-graduation ceremony for all the seniors that our juniors put together for us, she said." I can't thank them enough, especially with our commencement being canceled. That was pretty awesome."
After making a leap of faith and deciding to become a Michigan Wolverine four years ago, Yasuda truly has taken advantage of every opportunity that has come her way. She followed her passions and found new ones, learned to persevere and succeed, and has had the experience of a lifetime.
"The two biggest decisions I've made in the past four years were coming to this school and joining this team," she said. "And those are two things that I absolutely will never regret."
Players Mentioned
