The Barometer Online

Issue date: 10/24/06 Section: Sports

Media Credit: John Castle Before she left for Oregon, Caroline Leibinger's family autographed a German flag for the rower from Munich telling her to "have fun" at OSU and to "stay the same."

Caroline Leibinger shouldn't be here.

Don't be confused - the rower, who came to OSU all the way from Germany, loves Corvallis, but she didn't mean to wind up here. She shouldn't be rowing on the Willamette, shouldn't be suiting up in orange and black, shouldn't be winning All-American honors for the Beavers.

She should be at Yale, earning an Ivy League degree, suiting up for the Bulldogs and braving brisk New England weather. But doesn't the saying go that even the best laid plans often go awry?

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If Leibinger would have had it her way, she would have stayed in Germany.

Back in Munich, Leibinger had everything she wanted: family close by, a familiar culture and a spot on the national German rowing team.

"I didn't really want to go abroad," she explained. "Coming to the states and being on the German national team is not doable, because they're [the national team] really strict. If you're not there throughout the year you can't be considered, so I was like, no way, I'm not leaving."

But then Leibinger's mom told her all about Title IX, encouraging her daughter to take an opportunity she wouldn't get in Europe.

"She told me how it's so easy for girls to get scholarships and she really wanted me to go abroad to learn the language," Leibinger said.

So Leibinger applied to Yale with the intention of continuing her rowing career there. But last minute problems with her application came up and suddenly, Leibinger had no where to go. Then she caught a lucky break.

The then-assistant coach at Yale, who had been talking to Leibinger, applied for the novice coaching position at OSU, and told OSU coaches about Leibinger. The coach didn't get the job, but OSU wanted Leibinger.

"OSU was really nice, they were actually nicer, I thought, than Yale," she said. "They called me twice and were really responding to my questions and I had a good feeling about it, so I went here."

Continued...

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