A member of the PR3 mixed four, Charley Nordin ’15 won a silver medal in the 2018 World Rowing Championships held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, this month.
Charley Nordin, who walked onto Gonzaga’s crew team in 2016, is now rowing his way to the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics Games — one stroke at a time.
Competing in the games was never one of Nordin’s original life goals. But then again, neither was becoming a rower.
Before coming to GU, Nordin was an all-league cross country and track star on his way to fulfill Division I dreams as a runner.
That is, until they were abruptly shattered — along with three of his lower vertebrae in his lumbar spine in a devastating rope swing accident. Although his dedication to physical therapy got him back on his feet, he was still confronted with the inability to run: a void in his identity he needed to fill. That’s where rowing came in.
