Back at the boat house after the workout, the usual milling around was going on, and more water squirting and frisbee throwing, when Nancy suddenly emerged onto the pier with a cake. The team greeted her with cries of delight. What was the occasion, exactly?

"The occasion," Nancy announced, licking mocha icing off her fingers, "is that we are now a set unit--and you guys are gonna have to get along together."

There was a ripple of knowing laughter. "Don't we already?"..."Even if we hate each other?"

Maggie is sitting on the floor of her room, her back to the window that overlooks the courtyard where the team can be seen coming back from the river. The "Sleeping" sign is no longer on her door, but she can't hear anyone knock because her hair dryer makes so much noise. Her hair is flowing down her shoulders, clean and wavy and blonde, and her light blue eyes peer out from under it with a soft, sad look in them.

Ever since Harry Parker came in that afternoon and said, "Well, Maggie, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," she's been in sort of a daze. The state she's in, after the last five weeks of training--the injury, the psychological pressure--well, it's just gotten to her. She doesn't even know whether or not she feels discouraged, she hasn't had time to really think.

She knows she wants to get out of Eliot House, as soon as possible, but what will come next is an open question. She has no apartment, no job at the moment--she took a leave of absence from her job selling computers until September--but she has money in the bank and a lot of options. Maybe she'll take a trip. The Harvard Business School has accepted her for next year and given her $7000, but she couldn't go to school and train at the same time. So maybe she'll defer admission--if she keeps rowing.

What is new to her about rowing in an eight is the element of competition. She's been involved in non-competitive sports, and she's rowed by herself. But by yourself, winning, she's found, is shallow, and losing is lonely. She likes rowing in an eight, and it has been a challenge, and she likes challenges, but has it all been worth it? She isn't sure now.

"I saw that if I wanted to do well, I was going to have to learn to hate people...I guess you have to like winning so much that you really want to beat someone else. I don't know, I'll have to think about it."

It was a challenge, but it was also tedious and, well, maybe a little disillusioning. "You get really tired of living with people, day in, day out--you didn't really have a chance to get away from people...And I didn't really like a lot of what I saw--things that were unsporting, just bad sportsmanship. I don't know, maybe it's because women's crew is such a new sport, but you'd think you'd be above that by the time you got to the world-championship level. I don't know." She hesitates, not really wanting to put into words what she wants to say. "It's a really dirty game. When you get in the boat, people just start playing games."

But she's still feeling unsure, there's still the possibility that she'll put off business school and go into training in the fall. "But I'll tell you one thing," she says with a bitter smile, "I like to do things well. And if I do go back, I'll be a real maniac.