Six weeks ago, senior Richard Walter walked into his first crew practice as a way to cross-train for the fall, when he was planning to walk on to Chico State’s basketball team.

“I wanted to do something that would keep me in shape,” he said. “I heard that people from crew were always in good shape, so I decided to try it.”

Walter’s parents had been telling him that he should row for years, but Walter resisted and took to basketball and soccer instead, earning six varsity letters between the two, in addition to being recruited as a walk-on at Chico.

But at Walter’s second-ever crew practice with the Upper Natomas Rowing Club (UNRC), he found that his athletic talents might not be best suited for the court, but instead in a boat.

The rowers were tested at the erg machine—an indoor machine used to simulate rowing—as they rowed 2000 meters as fast as they could.

Walter completed the test in 6:39, finishing before the rest of his team members, all of whom had been rowing longer than he.

“This is very rare to see an athlete come into crew, being such a physically and technically demanding sport, and excel like Rich has,” Dan Carson, Walter’s UNRC coach, said in an email.

Walter’s impressive performance got his club crew coaches talking, and they quickly offered to contact college coaches on his behalf.

“I was kind of like, ‘Oh, I’m just doing this to stay in shape. I’m going to Chico to play basketball,’” Walter said.

But after his second erg test, in which he shaved four seconds off his original time, his coaches were more insistent.

“They were like, ‘This is your thing; you should be doing this. There is no reason you shouldn’t be rowing at a Div. I school next year,’” he said.

Walter gave the go-ahead and, a week later, received calls from the University of Washington (UW) and UC Berkeley, the first-and second-ranked collegiate rowing teams in the nation, respectively.

“Up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even understand how good my erg times were,” Walter said.

“I was really shocked about all of this.”

Varsity basketball coach Dave Ancrum was, too.

“At first, I was speechless,” he said. “I knew he could rebound, but I didn’t know he could row.”

And since Walter’s crew coach contacted the coaches at Cal and UW, Walter’s times have only gotten better.

With his current time of 6:21, Walter would have placed eighth in his age group at last year’s Charles River All Star Has-Beens (C.R.A.S.H.-B.) championship, the unofficial world indoor rowing championship.

“Some of the kids on my team kind of joke around because it’s not fair. I’ve been going for a month and they’ve been going for like four years,” Walter said.

And according to Carson, Walter will continue to quickly improve.

“With Rich’s size and his work ethic, I see him working ultimately to row in the Olympics for the US National Team,” Carson said.