It’s 6 a.m. and the sun is just rising over Hummock Pond when Mike Springer arrives at the landing on the waterlike he does almost every morning. He unties a single scull from a rack placed inconspicuously by the water and hoists it over his shoulder, two oars in his hand. Rowing is often called the ultimate team sport, but today, it’s just Springer, and the pond is all his. You might not know it by how casually he launches his boat on the pond, but Springer is one of two islanders training for the Head of the Charles Regatta in October—the pinnacle of rowing in the Northeast. The rest of his rag-tag group of Nantucket rowers is made up of competitive high school and collegiate students, former Ivy League rowers and a handful of summer and year-round residents who simply enjoy spending a few hours of their morning out on the water.

“At its core, it’s very peaceful,” said Springer, the founder of Nantucket Rowing. “It’s like meditation on water, and like any other sport, the more that you are involved with it, the easier it becomes. Though I will also say it can be the hardest sport you’ll ever try.”

After seven years of rowing on Nantucket, Springer is now hoping the group he formed can train the next generation of rowers, including students at Nantucket High School and college kids on the island for the summer. Not only is rowing good exercise—it’s also a gateway for students to land college scholarships. And with college amateurism becoming a game of high-stakes endorsement deals, there’s a lot on the line.

Springer’s ultimate goal: Create a Nantucket High School rowing team. “Rowing opens doors,” he said. “It opens doors both for the number of schools that students can get into, and it opens doors to a lot of financial assistance. It can really offset the cost of college, especially for somebody that really loves the sport."

On a Saturday in June, the Nantucket Rowing group is in full swing, all hands on deck. There are over two dozen members in the group, some of them representing the best rowing clubs in the country: Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, UCLA, the University of Massachusetts, Villanova and Yale. In 1985, late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Nantucket summer resident David Halberstam wrote a book on the art of rowing called The Amateurs, telling the story of four rowers trying out for the U.S. Olympic team. Those who competed, he wrote, “did so with a demonic passion.” The Boys in the Boat author Daniel James Brown went even further: “It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.”

There’s a drive that defines this group of island rowers, too. Some are out there every week, training religiously. Even those whose competitive days are behind them still feel that drive when they launch their boats in Hummock Pond. “If you’re competitive and you’re training, your body uses more oxygen to row than any other sport,” Springer said. “When people talk about 80% of your muscles being in use, it’s true.”