Early mornings on Carnegie Lake were how Nolan Kaputa ’22 spent most of his time in quarantine. In the yellow single he shares with his dad, he practiced every day before school.  is extra work contributed to his success last year at nationals, where his boat placed third.

Kaputa first started rowing the summer before eighth grade at Mercer Rowing. There was no novice head coach during his first year at Mercer, so the varsity and novice teams were combined that season. He was the only novice member that year to move up another one season. Now a senior, he is the team captain of the boys varsity team and has committed to Yale University.

Rowing is a huge part of Kaputa’s life, and many of his friends and role models are a part of the Mercer community. He leads Crew Club at PHS, alongside other varsity rowers. In his downtime, Kaputa watches tapes from practice and past regattas. He uses this time to focus on his technique and relive some of his favorite moments with his teammates, who appreciate his leadership.

“Nolan is a dedicated leader and role model on the Mercer team. His leadership to both me and everyone on the team is by example. He inspires me to try my best at every practice and every regatta,” said teammate Owen Brown ’24.

Kaputa believes that his experience competing at nationals has been the most defining moment of his rowing career so far — particularly the timed trials, in which his team finished 0.2 seconds behind St. Joseph’s Prep, the fastest team.

“It shows how tough we are. Anyone can race side-by-side, and they’re really good racers. But I think also just in comparison to them, we’re a lot tougher on our own,” Kaputa said.

He also recalls the semifinals of nationals last year, where the Mercer varsity boys had the best time out of all the boats. He is proud that although they were disadvantaged by having a mostly lightweight team, they came in third despite the di culty of the competition.

Kaputa states that he is surrounded by inspirational people. His teammates and role model Coach James Hamp have pushed him to work harder every day.

“Jamie [is] really chill, but also he’ll give you multiple chances, and he holds you to a really high standard,” Kaputa said.

Assuming responsibility as a captain, Kaputa took on the role of sharing strategies, leading core exercises, and keeping the team motivated through personalized encouragement and emphatic advice.

“I try to be as much of a role model as I can be, which is sort of my primary goal. I understand I’m setting an example for people because if people don’t s e e t h e captain doing something, like if I spend my day messing around, people are going to be like, ‘I can just mess around,’” Kaputa said.

Hamp agrees with the way that Kaputa helps run the team and notes that he leads by example.

“He is extremely willing to work hard and really committed. He is very dedicated to anything he does when he wants to do something. He just goes and does it. That’s rowing. That’s basically everything from what I’ve seen. And he’s just really easy going and fun to be around. He doesn’t get uptight about stuff . So people naturally gravitate to him. Because he’s a hard worker. You know, being around him is fun. But you already know Nolan is going to stay focused and get stuff done,” said Hamp.