Stephanie Hunley, who played a part in Tennessee's fifth-place finish in the Varsity 4 petite final at last season's NCAA championships, refers to rowing as "the ultimate team sport."

It's the glide that has Stephanie Hunley hooked.

Every muscle strains. Every movement has to be made in perfect harmony with those around her.

She's a junior on the University of Tennessee rowing team, but it wasn't long ago that she was a complete novice in every sense of the word.

"I had never picked up an oar a day in my life," she said.

Her background was in softball and volleyball at Lenoir City High School.

The only experience she had with rowing was watching it on the Olympics. It just seemed like a nice way to keep the competitive juices flowing.

"Now I can't see myself doing anything else," Hunley said as the Lady Vols prepare to begin their fall season at the Chattanooga Head Race today. "It's the ultimate team sport.

"It doesn't compare with anything else I've ever done."

The adrenaline rush of a team working in rhythm and pushing a shell to its limits has Hunley hoping for bigger and better things during the 2008-09 season.

"All eight girls and the coxswain have to have that one focus," she said. "We're so focused on being strong competitors and executing our race plan.

"We're trying to take excellent strokes together for a common cause. That's what makes it the ultimate team sport. You always have the back of the girl in front of you and try to motivate the girl in back of you."

Hunley was a novice as a freshman and got the call up to the varsity as a sophomore.

She helped UT to an 11th-place overall finish in the NCAA championships with a fifth-place finish in the Varsity 4 petite final.

Hunley has noticed she even carries herself a little differently around campus these days.

"Just the prestige of wearing orange and blue and being a Lady Vol is what drew me to it," she said. "I showed up to a novice recruiting meeting and you can ask anybody who knows me, I'm totally different than I was in high school.

"It changes your whole mentality of how you carry yourself in class, around campus, just in every day life. Ask any Lady Vol."

Watching the development of a young rower like Hunley is one of the perks Lady Vols coach Lisa Glenn loves about her job.

"Stephanie has improved tremendously," Glenn said. "She's in her junior year and really starting to see her hard work pay off, starting to make the boats move and starting to feel more comfortable contributing when she's in a boat. That's exciting to see."

The Lady Vols have made the NCAA championships six consecutive years, but Glenn hopes this team is ready to take the next step.

"We have done a lot to this point and now we want to do more," she said. "We'll get a little bit better in a lot of ways. That's what I'm committed to and that's what the team is committed to.

"I don't know if all of a sudden we'll be right at the top of the heap, but we're always going to be a tough competitor and we're always going to be one of the top programs."

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.