There are not many students able to perfect and maintain a rigorous routine, and if there were to be any examples, the closest one to exemplify this perfection would be student-athlete Taylor English.
Sports, hobbies, academics, a social life and mental health are five things that are extremely hard and exhausting to balance at the same time. For many students, trying to balance just two or more of those aspects of life is already a hard enough feat to take— let alone five.
It takes an insane amount of hard work, drive, and motivation to maintain all five; if there’s anyone at this school who perfectly possesses that crazy hard work and dedication, it’s Taylor English.
Taylor English, a senior at PVHS, is a highly accomplished rower for the Y Quad Cities Rowing team and a soon-to-be rower for Stanford University this upcoming fall. Being the extremely hard working and determined person she is, English makes balancing all five of those aspects of life look easy.
At the young age of 17, English already has an immense amount of rowing accomplishments. She is a four-time outdoor national champion (team boats; once in 2017, once in 2018, and twice in 2019), an indoor national champion (individual; 2019) and a Royal Henley Regatta Diamond Jubilee challenge cup winner (took place in England; first overseas boat to win). She was also a 2017 US junior national team member (competed in Trakai, Lithuania) and was also a 2019 US junior national team member that competed in Tokyo.
With all of these spectacular accomplishments, however, comes a very rigorous routine. “We practice about 7 to 11 times a week depending on the season,” English said. “Often these practices are before school, after school and on the weekends, and because of this the sport becomes very physically and mentally demanding.”
Even with this rigorous routine, English is still somehow able to maintain her hobbies, academics, social life and mental health. She is a highly achieved student, so much so that she was accepted into Stanford University. As for her hobbies, English has also played the alto saxophone for seven years and continues to do so even with this rigorous routine.
However, maintaining these high standards isn’t as easy as she makes it look. “It can be really hard to balance everything because of the time commitment rowing requires,” English stated. “If I can get a lot of my school work done during the school day, that helps a lot. It also means that I don’t have to stay up too late doing homework; late nights followed by morning practices are difficult.” This is understandable, knowing that she wakes up at 4:45 am for her practices before school.
Despite the exhausting schedule she has to endure, English still manages to be a very positive, bubbly and overall happy person. She’s insanely nice, loving and supportive to everyone in her life and cherishes the many friends she has. English is an amazing role model for everyone at the PV School District and deserves all the accomplishments she has and will receive in her life being the hard-working, genuine person she is.
