On Tap with ... Emma Bedard

Aside from showing her prowess on the water, Bedard also studies chemical and biological engineering. She opened up about quirky teammates, the legendary “sprints night” and living through Princeton as an engineer and athlete.

Q: What was your “welcome to college” moment?

A: First couple of practices with the H-bomb takes the cake; a really rough wake-up call.

Q: What is the greatest highlight of your sports career?

A: The season’s not over yet! And I hope that the greatest highlight of my “career” will materialize this upcoming weekend as well as at the beginning of June.

Q: Who is your quirkiest teammate, and why?

A: Hmm, it’s a close race between [freshman] Grace Riccardi and [senior] Caroline Clark, but I think Caroline wins that one, especially with her pre-practice yoga rituals and wearing the ridiculous Princeton sunglasses, fitted with tiger-striped lanyard, while racing. Although Grace gets serious quirk points for her hot man-printed pogies.

Q: If you were your coach for a day, what would you do?

A: Well, for starters I would get to drive a launch (a motor boat, for all you non-crew people). I would probably ditch the crew I was coaching and just wake out all the other teams’ boats.

Q: Does the team have any odd rituals?

A: There are a few ... a notable one involves a pomelo (insanely large grapefruit). Enough said.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not practicing?

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A: Drinking coffee and belting out songs in my room when I think no one is listening.

Q: What music inspires you?

A: A healthy mix of Celine Dion and David Guetta

Q: What is your most embarrassing memory at Princeton?

A: On a Sunday morning last year, I went for a casual run down Nassau Street and Prospect Avenue and I sat down on the stone wall of the dam, to enjoy the scenery. And I sat down on a fresh “puddle” of white bird poop, while wearing black spandex pants. I knew I sat on something wet, and shortly noticed my butt was covered in it. Let’s just say it was a long jog back to campus.

Q: What is your favorite eating club theme night?

A: It’s not really a theme, but Sprints Night at Cloister is definitely at the top of my list. It’s such a nice, relaxing evening filled with F.U.N. and way too much photographic evidence.

Q: If you could tweet anything to the world, what would you say in 140 characters?

A: “Why am I still single??????????????”

Q: What is the worst part about being an engineer and an athlete?

A: You think Forbes to the E-Quad is far? Try getting to the boathouse from the “Nerd Quad” in five minutes, at 4:25 p.m. (five extra minutes since your lab experiment went haywire).

Q: What is the best part about being both an engineer and an athlete?

A: Hmm, let me think for a little while about this one. I got nothing for you on this.

Q: Who would win in a cage match: floaters, boaters or lifeguards?

A: Pff, the boaters would win, hands down. Floaters are so used to competing in the water that in a cage (on land), they’d be unable to channel their energy into winning a cage match. Plus, assuming this cage match is like the WWF kind where props are allowed, the boaters would take oars and smack the floaters across the face, leaving us boaters to grab ahold of their pool noodles and then strangle the lifeguards.