In hindsight, it seems predestined that Notre Dame rower Erin Maron became an EcoAthletes Champion.

“I’ve always been an outdoors lover,” recalled the rising senior. “I really got interested in sustainability in middle school. In high school, I worked with a club, Project Greenhouse, that had a garden in the back of the school. We donated the produce to a local food bank.”

Maron’s interest in the environment grew once she entered Notre Dame.

“As a math and science person, I became an environmental science major with a sustainability minor,” Maron shared. “I get to study the entire sustainability world, from science to policy to climate justice and more. The combination is just what I was looking for!”

One thing Maron did not know she was looking for was rowing, at least not when she was growing up in Oradell, New Jersey. She played several sports, with basketball being her #1, going into high school. And then a childhood friend began to row; his mom suggested Maron try it. She did so at the end of her sophomore year and liked it right away.

“I got my friend Kate to row with me in a double (2-person sculling boat); I loved being part of a team,” she said. “By the end of our junior year, we started to get really competitive. Kate was the driver in the bow; I was the engine in stroke. By senior year, rowing was my #1 sport.”

At Notre Dame, Maron moved to sweeping (one oar) larger boats, eights, and fours, which was like learning an entirely new sport. She got some valuable experience in the fall 2019 season of her freshman year, put in a lot of work on the ERG (aka rowing) machine during the winter and was in a training camp in early March in Tennessee for the spring season when the world changed.

“The first wave of COVID had hit while we were in camp, and everything went nuts,” recounted Maron. “The day before our first race, we were told to go home. So, we went back to campus and the next day I drove back to New Jersey. It was a very tough time for everyone, but we got through it.”

The 2020-21 rowing season at the legendary South Bend, Indiana school was in person, but it was hardly normal.

“There were strict rules in place about how we could be together and where,” Maron said. “We couldn’t meet as a full team, so we practiced on ERG machines in small groups that were set up in the concourses of the football stadium. While it could be brutally cold at times and we couldn’t bond like we would’ve done if we were all together, it was a much better alternative than being away from campus.”

This past fall was Maron’s first at Notre Dame that was largely COVID restriction-free. With the entire team fully vaccinated, they were able to practice at full go, getting ready for the spring season.

“The season came with its ups and downs, and our record was mixed,” admitted Maron. “The good thing is, we are a young team and developed well during the season, with a lot of us continuing to get stronger and faster throughout the year. I think we have a chance to continue to make a big leap next year, with almost the entire team coming back and a strong freshman class coming in.”

Maron is also enthusiastic about the sustainability organization for Notre Dame student-athletes she is helping to launch.

“In the second semester of my sophomore year, spring of 2021, I had conversations with the office of sustainability about the athletics department,” she offered. “It turns out that nothing was going on at all in terms of sustainability, we were behind. But then I found out that there was an ACC sports sustainability group and spoke to one of its founders, Sadey Rodriguez[1] at the University of Virginia. She was great, encouraging me to start a sustainability organization at Notre Dame athletics. I had never done anything like this but, I thought to myself, ‘No one is doing this; why not me?’”

Maron joined forces with her rowing teammate, coxswain Emily Huber — also a recent addition to the EcoAthletes Champions roster — to make a plan to form a sustainability organization among Notre Dame student-athletes. Maron is forming this group through a capstone project alongside another teammate, Isabella Balder.

The duo is taking a four-step approach to building the Notre Dame green student athlete group, Play Like a Green Champion Today[2].

1. Garner support from the sustainability and athletic departments,

2. Learn what other green student athletes, in the ACC and beyond, are doing,

3. Establish sustainable action standards for Fighting Irish teams, and,

4. Find student-athletes interested in the environment and climate to launch and operate group

The initial proposal for this group has been submitted to the advisory board for review, and, according to Maron, it appears as though they will be in support of it.

Maron sees being part of the EcoAthletes Champions team as another important step.

“I can’t wait to work with and learn from such a diverse group of athletes, all of whom are committed to taking action on climate and the environment,” said Maron. “Inspiring fans, or anyone for that matter, to make behavioral changes is not easy. That EcoAthletes is taking this on inspires me to do the same at Notre Dame.”

To EcoAthletes founder and CEO Lew Blaustein, Maron brings a key quality to the Champions virtual locker room.

“The climate fight takes patience and perseverance,” Blaustein acknowledged. “That is exactly what Erin brings. She seeks out the long, hard challenges. Long distance rowing at Notre Dame. Launching the Notre Dame green athletics group. Erin will make a difference on the #ClimateComeback and is a welcome addition to the EcoAthletes Champions.”

[1] Sadey Rodriguez, who threw the discus for the UVa track team, is an EcoAthletes Champion.

[2] ‘Play Like a Green Champion’ refers to the ‘Play Like a Champion’ sign that every Notre Dame football player touches on the way from the locker room onto the field at Notre Dame Stadium.

You can follow Erin on Instagram and Twitter