It is said that love is the most powerful of human emotions.

Love of rowing drives Clemson University’s Ana Klenke to be able to deal with the physical pain and the mental struggles that are constants in her sport.

A different kind of love — that of making a positive difference on behalf of all life forms —propels her to study environmental sustainability. 

And Klenke has now become an EcoAthletes Champion so she can more effectively share that love by using her platform as an athlete to make a difference on climate.

“As soon as I heard about EcoAthletes, I knew I wanted to be part of it,” recalled Klenke. “Being a Champion will expose me to athletes with exciting ideas on the environment and climate, and the organization will work with me to be better at using my voice to help my followers fall in love with climate action so we can do a much better job of limiting climate pain.”

Pain has been a companion for the St. Louis native from a young age.

“My first sport was soccer — my dad played, and I followed his lead — but I injured my back in 7th grade,” she shared. “I tried to play with a back brace, but it didn’t work and took the fun out of it. At summer camp, I got to try kayaking and quickly got into it. Then my parents enrolled me in a ‘Learn to Row’ camp and I immediately loved it — the stroke is beautiful and graceful; the sound is wonderful, and I loved the teamwork of the 4s and the 8s. So, that was it for soccer and I became hooked on rowing.”

During her high school years, Klenke became a constant presence at the St. Louis Rowing Center, Missouri’s only venue for the sport, where she focused on lightweight rowing.

“I’m on the smaller side and the ‘130lb. and under’ limit for lightweight was a perfect fit,” she said. “I loved it and had success from early on. By the end of my sophomore year my results made me confident I could row lightweight in Division I.”

Lightweight rowing occupies a unique niche within the college rowing ecosystem. It’s not governed by the NCAA — instead, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association holds sway over all men’s rowing plus women’s lightweight. And there are only a few schools that have a women’s lightweight program; the most prominent among them include Boston University, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Klenke was recruited by several of the lightweight heavyweights and, though the choice was a tough one, finally headed north to Boston University.

“My freshman year, 2020-21, was the COVID year and the rules at BU were super-stringent with very strict mask mandates and more,” she acknowledged. “They wanted to be known as the safest COVID school, so, all the classes were virtual, and sports teams had serious limitations on how they could practice. This made it difficult for me to find my place. Even with the restrictions — we ran stairs in the dorm to stay in shape — being part of a team was a blessing.”

Despite finally being able to have practice scrimmages on the Charles River at the end of April/early May (“The sunsets with the Boston skyline in the background were incredibly beautiful!”), Klenke ended up feeling that the school wasn’t for her.

“I was burned out after my freshman year from the lockdown and the stop-start team connections,” she admitted. “That summer, I took a break from rowing and instead decided to train for a triathlon in Chicago. Even though I’m not that strong a swimmer — I was sure I would drown! — I loved training for it even though the waves of Lake Michigan hit you in multiple directions. I ended up doing well in the triathlon and then I thought it was time to go back to rowing.”

That was easier said than done, thanks to a bout of shoulder tendinitis in the fall of her sophomore year, which made it impossible to train. Despite a successful rehab, finding a way to rekindle her love for rowing remained elusive during winter training and continued into the spring.

Turns out, it wasn’t her love of rowing that was lacking; it was her love of Boston University.

“I never fell in love with it,” observed Klenke. “I felt like I owed it to myself and my future rowing teammates to find another school where I would fit in better.”

That school — Clemson — turned out to be the polar opposite of BU in several key ways:

●     South Carolina versus Boston

●     Big Power 5 sports school in Clemson of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) versus mid-major BU (except for ice hockey)

●     Great environmental sustainability/regenerative agriculture program at Clemson — Klenke’s academic passion — versus a much smaller offering at BU

“My high school coxswain was at Clemson and suggested I come down,” she remembered. “I drove straight down from BU and was sold right away. And I started to get the love back for rowing; I found I had missed it. It felt great the first time I got back in a boat.”

Now, one other big difference between Clemson and BU is that the former does not have lightweight rowing.

Klenke was excited about and ready for the challenge.

“The two sports are very different, but I love the fact that I don’t have to worry about weight,” she enthused. “It’s just the rowing. It’s between me and the boat, between me and the ERG. It’s between me and my terrific, accountable teammates. And it’s about how I can become more efficient with my strokes to make up for my lack of size.”

Klenke’s goals, and those of the Clemson team, for this spring’s season are lofty: Win the ACCs.

Her goals for her career — one that she expects will make a positive difference on the environment — are also high and not new. Klenke’s family often vacationed at national parks and that has helped feed a lifelong love of the outdoors. Then a podcast interview in high school took her environmental passions in a different direction.

“I listened to an episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, in which he interviewed Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute which works to make animal agriculture more efficient and humane,” she said. “The more I researched industrial ag, the more I realized I wanted to study environmental science at Boston University, to learn about the climate crisis and how to do something about it.”

Klenke loved her climate science classes at BU and that love has intensified for her at Clemson.

“I’m a political science major with a minor in sustainability,” she reported. “The sustainability and policy-making classes are equipping me with tools and knowledge for the future. I’d like to pursue environmental and human rights law, because that’s the way I believe I would make the biggest difference.”

Before she heads off to law school, Klenke will be making a difference for Clemson on the water and on the environment as an EcoAthletes Champion.

This thrills EcoAthletes CEO and founder Lew Blaustein.

“Ana is already leading the #ClimateComeback at Clemson and she’s only just become an EcoAthletes Champion,” Blaustein raved. “Thanks to her efforts, Clemson has a significant lead in the inaugural EcoAthletes Collegiate Cup Powered by Climategames, a friendly competition between the 13 schools that have EcoAthletes Champions in which exercise is translated by an app into removal of carbon from the atmosphere! Talk about translating love for the environment into action. And Ana is just beginning her tenure as a Champion. I can’t wait to see what happens once she has time to dive in!”

You can follow Ana on Instagram