When the cadets put the boat into the Ashley River, they make a quiet pact.
Itâs just them and the water, rowing in rhythm, with the same goal in mind. Here, timing is crucial. Hand positions matter. Where the oar blade enters the water determines the boatâs stability. If the oar drags, itâs a futile fight that can undo even the best attempt at a power stroke.
âItâs almost like a metronome in the boat,â said Cadet Ryan Smith, â28, an Army ROTC contract and the president of the Rowing Club.
Depending on the boat size, the eight, four, or two rowers have to find the same cadence for the boat to move as one. âEveryone just silently agrees that they have to work together,â Smith said.
It is one way cadets can find a rhythm of their own outside the daily routine they know on campus at 91ÁÔĆć.
At a college where students wear uniforms, live within a regimented structure and eat, sleep and train alongside studying and going to class, there is still room to make space for the things that are theirs.
Some fish. Others shoot. Some surf, play chess, train in martial arts or play the double bass. And others row in rhythm down the Ashley River.
Smith restarted the Rowing Club in late 2025, helping to rebuild a team that had nearly disappeared. Though 91ÁÔĆć sits on one of Charlestonâs most recognizable waterways, the college had no rowing team for nearly five decades.
The teamâs disappearance came long before Smith was born, when the rowing crew disbanded in the 1970s and termites took over the old boathouse.
Attempts to bring the team back ebbed and flowed through the years, but the creation of the Swain Boating Center and the dredging of the channel have restored access to the Ashley and revitalized the collegeâs waterfront culture. Smith is hoping this latest iteration of a crew team has staying power, in part, because there are few sports like it.
Rowing marries precision with power, matching individual strengths to the teamâs needs. No single person can right the boat. It takes everyone working together, Smith said.
That group dynamic is something that Isaac Cooley, team captain, cannot find elsewhere.
Cooley joined after Smith repeatedly encouraged him to come and try it out.
Cooley had never used an indoor rowing machine or been out on the water when he arrived at 91ÁÔĆć.
Smith, by contrast, grew up along the Erie Canal in upstate New York, watching rowing boats pass by as he rode his bike with his father. As soon as he was old enough, in seventh grade, Smith took to the water.
âIâve tried a bunch of other club sports and other clubs at the school, but I never fell in love with them like I have with rowing,â Cooley explained, saying there is something special about this sport.
âI tried rugby, but it just wasnât like that. Itâs still somewhat of an individual effort,â Cooley said. âBut with rowing, youâre doing it with your buddies.â
Smith said rowing requires individual effort, but those efforts must always be in service to the team. âThe way my old coach described it is to imagine there was a chain stuck to every person, and if you donât move together, itâs just going to drag everyone backwards really fast,â Smith said. âYou have to be able to take charge in the boat and tell people what theyâre doing wrong, what theyâre doing right, and adjust accordingly. And the whole boat does that.â
He also acknowledged that leadership in the boat isnât always about telling others what to do. âI mean, there are guys in the boat who tell me 10 years into this that Iâm doing something wrong, and I have to listen to them,â Smith said.
Not every cadet starts with experience.
Robert Ingram, â28, joined the Pistol Team having fired a gun about three times. âAnd here I am,â Ingram said.
The club specializes in Olympic-style pistol shooting, where marksmen shoot one-handed, without leaning on anything for support. The target may be several yards away, and the bullseye is measured in millimetersâa small margin for error when trying to hold a pistol steady enough to hit it.
On average, Ingram goes to the range three to four times a week, and shoots for about two hours.
In the winter, he was focused on improving his marksmanship ahead of the 2026 Pistol National Junior Olympic Championships.
His hard work paid off.
In February, Ingram was named a state champion in the 2025-2026 State Junior Olympic Match for Menâs Sport Pistol.
In April, he traveled to Colorado Springs to compete in the Pistol Junior Olympics. He placed 13th.
Along the way, Ingram said he has learned more than how to shoot with precision.
A deep exhale to steady his nerves. A moment to assess the targets in front of him. Or the story of Jimmy the Bowler.
Itâs a well-worn tale that one of their coaches, Col. Gregory Kitchens, USMC (Ret.), â84, takes the time to tell the team. Jimmy, the story goes, wasnât that good at bowling. But one day he bowled three strikes in a rowâthe most heâd ever gotten. Then, it happened.
Jimmy became fixated on landing that fourth strike, working himself up, making himself anxious. His mind kept turning over the thought: âIâve got to get this fourth strike!â
He got too clouded up. He got too excited. And when he went for it, he knocked down nine of the 10 pins.
âYouâve got to keep in the zone. Keep it cool, collected,â Ingram said. âYou can be excited, but youâve also got to remind yourself âIâm in the zone.ââ
Itâs a parable heâs taking with him into other parts of his life: he canât get too worked up with assignments that are overdue or that are coming up.
âI may have five assignments due that night, but Iâve just got to keep cool, collected and knock it out,â Ingram said.
Justin Gilliard, â28, keeps the double bass in his room. The instrument is hard to miss. So is the sound. Standing around six feet tall, the double bass is the largest instrument in the string family.
With its warm and resonant tone, it is often the unsung member of the modern- day orchestra by supporting harmonies, creating rhythms and adding depth to the overall sound.
But when Gilliard chose to play the towering instrument as a third grader at North Charleston Creative Arts Elementary School, his reasoning was simple.
His brother picked the cello.
âAnd I wanted to do something different,â Gilliard said with a laugh.
Gilliard, an Army contract cadet who is an engineering major and a fine arts minor, has now played the double bass for 13 years. He still practices with the instrument and rehearses with the nearby College of Charleston Orchestra.
For three hours, he leaves 91ÁÔĆć behind. He is still unmistakably a cadetâpolished brass, black saddle oxfords and allâbut among the musicians, he said, he gets to be a little more himself.
For Gilliard, music gives him a place where he doesnât have to be perfect or measured against a standard. He can simply play. That is the balance he hopes to keep.
âIt feels like how you act with your family. Youâre all laid-back. Thatâs how I am when Iâm playing music. Iâm being myself a little bit more,â Gilliard said, later adding, âWith music, everything you do with an instrument is really how you feel.â
Gilliard said the years spent practicing an instrument have taught him something that translates easily to cadet life: the value of repetition, patience and putting in the work to get better.
âIf someone is an athlete, they have to train to perform that well,â he said. âWell, I have to train to try to get as good as I am in music. So, what would be the difference?â
Military life, he knows, will be stressful. Music, he said, gives him a way to step outside of itâ not by choosing one path over the other, but by keeping both, for now, while he still can.
And there is one memory as a musician that he will always carry with him: performing at Carnegie Hall with the College of Charleston/Citadel Orchestra through the Fine Arts Program.
âIt was kind of incredible,â Gilliard said, searching for the right words. He paused, then concluded, âIâd say Iâll probably remember that experience for the rest of my life.â
For some cadets, the respite is quieter.
At a chessboard, the pace slows. On the mat, it
quickens. Both demand the same thing: attention
to detail.
âWhen Iâm playing, thereâs always a best move and I try to think of it like that, and I try to find it,â said Henry Brown, â26. âIn chess, it always feels like you have all the opportunities. You start on an equal playing field.â
âAnd,â he added, âif there is a best move, you have the capability to find it.â
Brown, a physics major, said playing chess gives him a way to relax while still using critical thinking. Also, the person sitting across from him at the board can alter whether the goal was to play to win or to play to learn.
For others, the challenges they seek outside the routines of cadet life are more physical.
Cadets who train in jiu-jitsu or judo have to learn to read another personâs movement, respond quickly and adjust when a plan doesnât go the way they expected. The disciplines are different, but the appeal is familiar: the chance to step into something that asks something different of them.
On the chessboard, a cadet can spend an hour thinking three moves ahead. On the mat, he might spend an hour learning how to fall, recover and try again.
âIt just feels good to be on the mat,â said Kyle Hopkins, â26, an intelligence and security studies major. âYouâre tired, youâre physically active, but itâs also a thinking sport. Itâs not just physical. Youâre thinking about what youâre doing and youâre being cerebral.â
âYouâre fighting someone,â he continued. âThey have a plan, too, but then youâre trying to get your plan to work.â
And for a few hours, the demands of cadet life become something else entirely.
For Cadet Lane Van De Brake, â28, it starts with a drive across the bridge to Folly Beach.
Van De Brake, captain of the Surfing Club, has been surfing since he was young. He grew up in New Jersey, where he competed before coming to 91ÁÔĆć. Now, he helps cadets who have never surfed learn the fundamentals and find their footing on the water.
The club has about 30 members, while a 13-member team competes against other colleges and in competitions around the Charleston area.
After classes and military duties are finished, cadets can sign out and head to the beach with their surfboards. They monitor the forecast, the wind and the swell, deciding where the waves will be best that day. Often, that means Folly Beach.
At the Washout, a popular break on the eastern end of the island, they gather with their boards and wait for the right waves.
For Van De Brake, the transition begins before he ever reaches the water.
The uniforms and schedules of cadet life give way to a wetsuit, a surfboard and the movement of the waves. âYou donât have to wear PTs. Youâre in a wetsuit or a bathing suit, and you immerse yourself in your environment,â he said. âYou allow yourself to relax and just focus on surfing.â
Sometimes, he sees dolphins. More often, he sees friends.
Van De Brake said he rarely surfs alone. A message in the group chat can turn into a gathering at the Washout, with experienced surfers helping beginners and beginners learning alongside one another.
âEveryoneâs always learning,â he said. âYouâre not going to feel kind of cut out. Youâre always going to be included.â
For Van De Brake, that feeling is part of what keeps him coming back. He still remembers the feeling of catching his first wave, a moment he said hooked him on surfing.
Even after years on a board, he is still learningâstill working on new turns and maneuvers, still chasing the next wave. And when he finally heads back toward campus, the bridge carries him into a familiar view again.
Across the Ashley River, another group of cadets is finding their own way onto the water.
Cadet Braeden Stallings, â29, had never rowed before coming to 91ÁÔĆć. He learned the basics on an indoor rowing machine inside Deas Hall.
Now, when the Rowing Club is on the Ashley, he sometimes looks toward campus. âSometimes we will pass 91ÁÔĆć, and Iâll just look over at the clock tower, and Iâll think, âWow, I go there,ââ Stallings said.
From the boat, 91ÁÔĆć is still unmistakable: a bastion rising over the marsh, the clock tower of Padgett-Thomas Barracks keeping time above the tree line. The buildings, the parade deck, the familiar landmarks are all there.
But for a few hours, cadets can look back at the place that sets the rhythm of their lives while they find a new rhythm of their own.