On Oct. 3, 2013, Dr. Garni Barkhoudarian operated on Pepperdine swimmer Amanda Rowe’s brain. Exactly three years later, he watched Rowe compete alongside her teammates at the Pepperdine swim and dive senior meet.
Rowe started her freshman year at Pepperdine in 2012 as a normal student athlete. It wasn’t until the Monday after returning from Thanksgiving break that she began feeling ill during practice.
“My first thought was I was just out of shape because we just came back from a holiday weekend and practice was hard,” she said. “I justified that to myself and figured it would get better. Wednesday night, I remember sitting in the hall of my dorm talking on the phone with my dad saying, ‘Dad, I can’t do it anymore.’”
The next morning, two of Rowe’s teammates drove her to the emergency room where doctors discovered that the problem stemmed from a cyst of spinal fluid that took up one-third of her brain. Rowe was aware of the genetic disorder since she was born, but it had never given her any problems past the age of two.
Doctors performed surgery the next day to remove a pump that was formerly used to drain the fluid. Along with the surgery came a recovery process that required four weeks without physical activity and six weeks out of the water.
“Even when I was past that [six week] threshold, I was still slowly building back up,” she said. “Probably the most frustrating thing for me was not being able to do anything and then getting back in the water and only being able to swim 25s at a time.”
But Rowe’s road to recovery was far from over. Three months later in February 2013, she underwent a second brain surgery to allow the cyst to drain properly. The second surgery came with a recovery process similar to the first and forced Rowe to watch her fellow freshmen compete in conference championships from the pool deck.
“Freshman year is a big transition time socially and academically and when you add in a sport too, and I was just on the sidelines for that,” she said. “Another obvious frustration was to not be able to physically do the sport that I love and be constantly monitored and told, ‘you need to be patient.’ Patience was something I was not great at.”
Rowe recalls the end of her freshman year as a turning point.
“I got more support from the team and that’s when my attitude toward swimming and my whole recovery process changed,” she said.
A third surgery to fix scar tissue in October of her sophomore year caused Rowe to take a redshirt year from competition, but she persevered through her final six weeks out of the water and returned to practice full time by early 2014. She credits her teammates a key reason she chose to return to the pool after an 18-month bout with surgeries and recoveries.
“From the very beginning, it was apparent that the support of my teammates would turn out to be a deciding factor in my coming back,” she said. “After that second surgery in February, I was ready to be done. I was over it, and if it hadn’t been for the support and encouragement of my teammates and a few key individuals in the athletic department, I would probably have transferred because there was no way I would be at Pepperdine and wouldn’t be swimming.”
Rowe finally returned to competition at the A3 Performance Invitational meet in November of her junior year. Traditionally held the weekend before Thanksgiving break, A3 — formerly called the Arena Classic — was the final meet Rowe competed in her freshman year before her string of surgeries began. She said that this ironic return to the competition pool resulted in the best meet of her life.
“To be at that same meet and drop time in all my events two years from the last time I had swam at that meet was really special and showed me that I was able to come back,” she said.
Along with Rowe’s comeback came a newfound leadership role in the athletic department. She became a Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) ambassador, hosted a bible study for her teammates and became involved with sideline — a student-athlete bible study. She said that living with two of her team’s star swimmers — Jessica Mosbaugh and Allison Naasz — for three years helped her further realize her purpose.
“My purpose on the team was not to be the fastest swimmer,” she said. “My purpose on the team was to use what had happened to me to encourage other people. I realized that there is a certain comfort level that comes with talking with someone who is your peer. I wanted to make myself available any way I could. People have poured into me and I’ve learned and grown so much.”
Rowe’s leadership was rewarded when she was honored with the Maurice Hilliard Award at the Pepperdine ESPY athletic awards on April 13. The yearly award is given in honor of the late athletics chaplain who touched the lives of Pepperdine athletes from 2000-12.
As far as swimming goes, Rowe continued to post best times in the pool throughout her junior and senior seasons.
“I’m incredibly happy with where I’m at and wouldn’t trade it,” Rowe shared. “I’m incredibly happy with the way I ended both my junior and senior seasons.”
Rowe will be walking across the stage with her classmates this Saturday to graduate on time — a feat she credits to faculty members who helped her continue with her academics while recovering from surgeries. She plans to stay in Malibu for the coming year before pursuing a masters in food science and nutrition.
As advice to her fellow college athletes going through a hardship, Rowe stressed the importance of reaching out.
“Athletes have a lot of pride, which is a good thing but can also be a bad thing when you’re dealing with struggles,” she said. “There are people out there who want to be there for you more than anything. We aren’t meant to do it ourselves.”
