Tom Terhaar immediately sold Yasmin Farooq. Elle Logan, he told her, should be training full time.
The brief conversation at last year's FISA (rowing's governing body) World Championships ignited the talented rower's quick rise to the top of her sport.
Terhaar, the United States women's coach, confirmed what Farooq, the women's coach at Stanford, had suspected: Logan was an Olympic-caliber talent.
Logan, a Brooks graduate, would take a year off from school to take her best shot at Beijing.
"Wow," Farooq thought. "If she's got that kind of a chance, then she has to go for it."
Logan's progress, Farooq said, was staggering. Splitting the year in Princeton, N.J., and Chula Vista, Calif., the 6-foot-2 former basketball player worked her way onto the women's eight.
"I would say that is the fastest I've seen an athlete climb," said Farooq, a coxswain on the 1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic teams and current commentator for NBC. "To make an Olympic boat after one year in college is pretty amazing."
Logan has logged many miles on her journey to the Olympics. She hails from Boothbay Harbor, Maine, located about 57 miles northeast of Portland.
Bobbie Crump-Burbank, Logan's basketball coach at Brooks, remembers her future starting center as a shy, homesick freshman.
"It's a case of tremendous growth," Crump-Burbank said.
By her senior year at Brooks, she was a crew and hoops captain and also a school prefect. By the time she graduated, she was ready for a new challenge.
"Her way of carrying herself was totally different," Crump-Burbank said.
Logan graduated in 2006. That summer, she spent three months in Uganda as part of an exchange program.
Even without much preseason training, Logan had an impressive freshman year at Stanford. She was named All-Pacific 10 and All-American, helping lead the Cardinal to a second place and 10th place finish, respectively, at the PAC-10 and NCAA championships.
"She's tall, strong, powerful. She has natural leverage and great boat feeling," Farooq said of Logan, who'll join Philips Academy graduate Caroline Lind, of Greensboro, N.C., on the Olympic team. "She's the total package.
"What she did in her first year at the collegiate level proved she had the potential to be an elite-level athlete."
Going for it
Logan was chosen as an alternate at the 2007 World Championships, where she caught the eye of Terhaar. Bill Logan, Elle's father, said there was talk of her finishing school and then training for the Olympics. But the opportunity was too great to pass up.
"The thought was, 'go for it now,'" Bill Logan said. "There's always kids coming up behind you. You're on an assembly line. It's your time for a little bit, then you're past it."
The decision paid off. After winning bronze in the women's eight at the 2007 FISA Under-23 World Championships, Logan won the silver in the pair at 2008 FISA World Cup stop in Lucerne, Switzerland, and the bronze in the pair at the World Cup stop in Munich.
Logan, whose team is in a media blackout leading up to the Olympics, has trained intensely throughout 2008. Relaxing is not an option.
"It's not just collegial competition," Bill Logan said. "This is serious business."
"When you get a chance like that," said Farooq, who before entering her third year at Stanford, will work for NBC in Beijing, "you have to take it."
Rowing at the games begins Aug. 9. The finals are scheduled for Aug. 16-17.
Despite protests and security concerns, Farooq is confident that China is ready for the Olympics. Bill Logan is excited.
"The more we talk to people who have been," he said, "the more confident we are it'll be a wonderful experience."
His daughter has certainly come a long way.
