 "Photo: Emily Kinsolving")
 "Photo: Karl McDonald")
At universities throughout America, countless student-athletes are provided with free education in exchange for their gifted athletic talents. Take a trip across the Atlantic Ocean, and you will see that not all countries are familiar with the term "student-athlete."
Freshmen rowers Tajana Lovric and Jelena Zunic journeyed to Austin from Zagreb, Croatia in order to pursue both parts of the term.
"I've always wanted to row in the U.S.," Lovric said. "In Croatia, you can't be an athlete and go to class. Here you can do both."
Assistant rowing coach Melissa Perrone was the connection that brought head coach Carie Graves and the two women together. Perrone knew Lovric's older brother, Petar, through their rowing days at Northeastern University. After asking Petar at a regatta if he knew anyone in Croatia interested in rowing, Petar recommended his younger sister. When Perrone was hired as an assistant coach at Texas, she advised the staff to look at Lovric. From Lovric, word finally got around to Zunic, who had been rowing competitively with her for the HAVK Mladost club team in Croatia the past three years.
"Recruiting is a lot about connections," Graves explained. "Hopefully, when [Lovric and Zunic] go back to Croatia over the summer, more people will hear about [Texas rowing]."
Graves went on a recruiting trip last summer in order to visit the girls' native country as well as look for more possible recruits, even though the girls had already committed to Texas. Graves believes the girls, as well as other foreign athletes, know what is at stake when coming to the U.S. to be a student-athlete.
"If you come from a different country and you've come all this way, you're not going to fail," Graves said. "It's not just about rowing; it's about getting a good education."
The girls cite the significant increase in competition as the main reason they have had to work extra hard since crossing the Atlantic.
"[In Croatia], you are satisfied with average," Zunic said. "And then you come here, and with average you are the worst on the team. You see another girl who is weaker than you doing better than you and it makes you want to go harder and harder."
Prior to attending Texas this fall, Lovric and Zunic tried out for the Croatian National Team but fell just short. After their experience with the Longhorns, the two say they are more confident they can make the team on their next try.
"Competition makes you [perform] better," Zunic said. "We have gotten so much stronger here. Now we have a good chance of going on the Croatian National Team."
Rowing for the Croatian National Team runs in the family for these two girls, as both their brothers row for the team. Petar Lovric rowed for Northeastern three years ago and Jelena Zunic's brother, Nikola, is currently rowing for the University of California.
Petar Lovric is training with another man to become the first Croatians to row across the Indian Ocean - 3,100 nautical miles. He is also attempting to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Tajana Lovric would like to follow her brother in that regard, too.
"I would like to go to the 2012 Olympics in London," Lovric said.
On Feb. 2, the two girls competed at the Erg Rodeo, an event in which rowers are timed using a rowing machine. Zunic and Lovric held two of the top four times for Texas behind two seniors. Their competitiveness was evident throughout the race as they fed off one another.
"I was like 'No, she won't beat me,'" Lovric exclaimed. "Whenever she was ahead of me, I would sneak up, and then she would go ahead again."
Zunic joked, "We went back and forth and I was thinking, 'Oh my god, she's crazy.'"
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