It took only three years for Lis Lambert to go from a walk-on who never considered herself an athlete to an NCAA Champion.

For the Radcliffe heavyweight crew co-captain, whose high school athletic experience consisted of non-competitive volleyball, college has certainly not been what Lambert expected as she enters her senior year with an NCAA Championship, two Eastern Sprints titles and a fourth-place finish in the international CRASH-B indoor rowing competition.

“Not only is she the captain, but one of the top athletes in the program right now,” says heavyweight coach Liz O’Leary.

Growing up in Whitefish Bay, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wis., Lambert never even considered crew, nor did she have much of an opportunity to do so. “There’s no rowing there,” she says with a laugh, adding “At all!”

However, a lack of experience has never impeded Harvard students from trying rowing, a rarity in Division I athletics.

“One of the things I love about this sport is that you can start as a complete novice and often, without very much athletic experience in high school, pick up the sport in college and become a national contender. And Lis has done exactly that,” O’Leary says.

Lambert first arrived at Harvard intending to devote her time to literary pursuits. She assumed her extracurricular activities would not stray far from campus literary magazines.

That mind set lasted all of one week, when, at the freshman activities fair, Lambert found her match.

Lambert recalls being propositioned by several “tall, impressive-looking women” who insisted she row. Though she had never even considered the sport, she decided to join the Radcliffe novice squad, unsure of what to expect.

Despite her inexperience, Lambert found crew to be a ideal fit. She stands at 6’3, lifts weights three times a week and practices on the water nearly every day. And it shows.

By her sophomore year, Lambert found herself sitting in the Varsity boat, and has never looked back. Now a co-captain in her third and final year rowing for the Black and White, the risk she took at the activities fair seems to have paid off both for Lambert and Radcliffe crew.

“It’s been pretty cool, sort of discovering the latent athlete in me,” Lambert admits with another smile. “It’s made for kind of an identity shift.”

Lambert’s new identity as a Division I varsity athlete has been further defined by the rapport she and her teammates have created both on and off the water.

“I love the training relationship; I love that we go lift weights together and cheer each other on,” Lambert says. “I love that we’re big women and proud of it and proud that we’re strong and we love to eat. I think that the way that we relate to our bodies is really healthy.”

Lambert characterizes her relationship with her team by depicting the carpeted area of the boathouse where the rowers stretch, warm-up and exercise.