(Photo Courtesy of North Carolina Athletics)
If there is any student-athlete at the NCAA stage worth putting on your bifocals and studying their progression year after year is North Carolina Women’s Rower, Sarah Fox. The native of Berwyn, Pennsylvania, traded in her swimsuit for the unisuit this season and is already one of the Tar Heels strongest competitors as an underclassmen.
(Photo Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Athletics)
The 2x All-State Swimmer and Former Blue Jay Swimmer for Johns Hopkins, did not make the jump to Chapel Hill without the urge of putting on a masterclass level performance to pursue her athletic career. Whether that be in a carbon fiber shell as opposed to herself solo in the aquatic center’s swimming pool, Fox treats every day as a challenge.
Trading in one compression suit for another, and walking onto the crew team after spending one year as a playmaker for Johns Hopkins, her pure athleticism truly never wavered one measure.
Evident in all components of her talents showcased both on land and within the charters of Jordan Lake, the home waterway of the UNC Tar Heels, Fox has strived to accomplish what some might believe to be the unthinkable.
When the FSN Staff circled the winter roundtable in December 2025 in order to spark the conversation amongst the College Rowing landscape, the names of stellar up and coming student-athletes came piling in at record levels.
Rowers across the College Rowing landscape, who have demonstrated their progression year to year, have been ones to watch considerably in 2026.
Fox’s name was the first to be considered in the pack of 196 student-athletes across all of the NCAA. Out of the twelve schools in the ACC with a cumulative total number of 30 recipients in her conference alone, she stood out as the dark horse — why, because nobody compares, respectively, and it’s written all over her, from her close peers to the one at the helm.
(Photo Courtesy of North Carolina Athletics)
After speaking with North Carolina Head Rowing Coach, Erin Neppel, she made it clear to FSN in February that “Sarah’s innate athletic maturity has made her a top competitor on our [their] team” and we would have to echo that statement over all of the NCAA Rowing ecosystem.
Following the release of FSN’s Annual Watchlist for Division 1 Women’s Rowing, one of College Rowing’s leading analysts, and For Stars Network Founder/CEO, Hudson Forster, had an opportunity to sit down one on one with the wonderkid.
The daughter of Jim Fox, the Former Rower for Stanford University (Class of 1989), and Megan Fox, who once rowed for Drexel University graduating from the iconic school on Chestnut Street in 1991 near the banks of Boathouse Row on the Schuylkill River, Sarah’s bloodline bleeds rowing.
Listed on the University’s Athletic Website as a true Sophomore, Fox shared with FSN that she technically has “four years of eligibility left” to compete with the Tar Heels granted by the NCAA Eligibility Center and courtesy of her Compliance Channels.
Circling back to her years as a youngster, Fox spent her time on the basketball court, soccer field, and deep in the charters of her local swimming pool. This would lead to achievements down the road that a young athlete could only dream of.
Fox attended numerous indoor rowing competitions with her father growing up in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
While she cheered him on to show her support on the sidelines, her interest in getting involved in the sport followed and was trending in the right direction so that rowing would eventually find its way into the next chapter of her personal biography.
“I always thought it would be cool [to join] and thought that I would give it [rowing] a go,” she said.
It’s safe to say that the passion from her two parents and collective commitment that they both shared for the sport was inherited onto Fox wholeheartedly, whether that was destiny or not.
Considering the fact of the matter that she was raised in Pennsylvania, coined as one of the meccas for rowing in the United States, and raised by two former college rowers, rowing was bound to enter her life one way or another, and luckily it did.
Even with her close friends in and around rowing during her high school years, her time spent in an array of sports kept her busy beyond comparison.
“Rowing was always in the background for me [in her inner circle] trying it,” she said. “My freshmen year of high school, I was still doing AAU basketball, travel soccer, and year-round swimming,” she mentioned. “I knew I wanted to do one in college, but I had to make a choice… I absolutely loved my club team for swimming and I was going to go all in.”
Fox’s backbone was the strength and support of her parents who were awfully familiar with the demand of high-level athletics at the college level.
“My dad loved me playing basketball, but [my parents] knew that I loved swimming, and wanted me to do something that I loved,” she called attention to.
Her Senior Year at Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania, was pivotal in her journey reaching the sport of rowing which would have only been possible pursuing the route that she did making her way to Baltimore, and a decision that changed her life for eternity; however, being an elite level swimmer was not her and her family’s main mission at mind — proficient academics.
(Photo Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Athletics)
I was looking at Hopkins, Tufts, Boston U, and Northeastern, which were schools that had great swim programs and athletic departments, but also highly academic because I’m interested in the medical field and pursuing that route,” Fox said.
One of the biggest “what if” questions for Fox had to have been if she would have realistically found the sport much younger in her teenage years — Would she have been the next youth prodigy out of Pennsylvania?
“I never got the chance to try rowing, but if I could in high school, I probably would have,” she exclaimed.
At the time and before rowing was even in the question for her as an endurance athlete, to achieve her fullest potential as an athlete while also pursuing her studies in academia, signing onto the Johns Hopkins’ Swim Team was a no-brainer for Fox.
That was until she realized that something more was calling her name, and that something special was in fact UNC Head Coach, Erin Neppel, who was once in her shoes as a Former Tar Heel Rower.
“I had really only been in contact with Erin,” Fox told Forster. “I was improving a lot over the Summer [going into UNC] and she had made it a lot more welcoming for me, showing up and knowing that I didn’t really have the experience of rowing yet, but wanted to come in and do my best,” she noted.
The welcoming environment of the rowing program at North Carolina and goals of the program to get back onto the NCAA National Stage struck Fox to the core, believing that the Tar Heels “are definitely in the running [in 2026],” she proclaimed.
In her mind and with the Senior Class’ perseverance day in and day out, the mission amongst the Tar Heel Rowing cluster gave her the chance to test her competitive edge; however, for Sarah, she’s committed to getting the Senior Class in Gainesville the last weekend of May, doing it for the young women on the team graduating in several weeks all of which she believes made her fall in love with the sport.
“They are never frustrated with me,” Fox said. “They will always help me with tech or little things [like going] over video,” encapsulating the early bond and dynamics of the program set forth by Neppel.
(Photo Courtesy of North Carolina Athletics)
Walking onto a Top-20 Women’s Rowing program is not for the weak, especially considering the fact that Fox is surrounded by decorated athletes from all across the world, but speed prevails, and she knows that.
“I might have had the speed [initially], but some of the technical [aspects] are still coming together,” said Fox.
With the recent rise in speed out of the ACC and standard amongst the conference, the athletes are beginning to take notice, not just the fans and media personnel who cover the sport.
“As a team, we’re definitely making the most of this season. We don’t have that many races this year, and so making the most of each race and seeing where that takes us," is an optimistic approach and cornerstone of the team’s mentality at the current time from Fox’s perspective.
Deep in her chemical makeup and ever true to her natural fight for being the best possible version of herself, the rising star’s impact in just her first few months on campus, steadily but surely and under the tutelage of Neppel’s Coaching Staff, was able to corral the program to levels dissimilar to recent years.
“We’re all hungry for improvement regardless of our rowing background,” said Fox. “We all just want the team to improve a lot, and it happens to be that me deciding to join has been super helpful,” Fox stated humbly while also appreciative of her supporting environment and overall team culture of the program she begins to love even more each day.
Developed in FSN’s Pre-Season Column, UNC was officially ranked from the Media Perspective as the 20th seed through evaluations.
Sandwiched in between the Indiana Hoosiers and above the Clemson Tigers, North Carolina climbed in speed and persistence. If not for Fox’s involvement, the hypothetical begs the question on where UNC would stand at the present time.
The volume of Fox’s overall influence and immense character prowess displayed both as a disciplined competitor and catalyst for speed makes her story just that much more impressive.
Where this sport will take her is unbeknownst to her, and although her personal goals are not as linear to pinpoint, Fox could not be more thankful to be living in the current moment, and rowing alongside her teammates in Chapel Hill, while the thrill of fighting tooth and nail fuels her fuel to rumble.
“I don’t have a specific goal,” she said. “Right now, I just want to see how far I can go with this sport. I’m just a huge competitor so I just want to see where this can take me. I absolutely love it right now and I’m just trying to find my ceiling,” she elaborated further.
While entering her first true season with the Tar Heels this Spring and unleashing her inaugural campaign under Neppel, Fox is committed to “not giving up an inch for anything” she exclaimed to Forster in her interview.
Just that comment alone got the FSN Team as a whole lifting off the seat of our chairs debriefing the conversation.
One week before our interview with Fox and a day before Valentine’s Day, she once again stepped up to the plate proving her headline of a statement.
Putting call to action and displaying the phenom-motto first hand, her and her teammates set up their Concept 2 Ergometers to be run over a two-thousand meter stretch where she then posted a profound result of six minutes and fifty-four seconds which was her second go-at the set distance workout on the machine in her lifetime, and the first alongside her teammates.
“My first 2k was a 7:26 in June and then a 7:12 in July [2025], and as soon as I stopped swimming in February [with the Blue Jays] I needed something to do, and I hopped on the erg, and absolutely loved it,” she said.
Her story goes far beyond her results in Woollen Gym, on the water, or better yet in the classroom studying Neuroscience, where even though her leadership skills and values are tested daily, pursuing that one percent better quota is just another day in the lab.
Fox has future intentions of training during the Summer Months in the “The City of Brotherly Love” rowing for high performance programs like ones at Penn Athletic Club to refine her skills as an individual. This Summer, she will be attending the World University Camp with eyes on the FISA World University Championship in Ontario, Canada, repping the Red, White, and Blue.
“I’m going to learn how to Scull hopefully, and get more racing experience in that regard,” Fox clarified.
Similar to swimming and the core components of being a high-performance swimmer especially at the Division 1 Level, Fox states “discipline, competitiveness, and the significance of small, often overlooked aspects like proper recovery and nutrition” are still at the core and fore-front as a collegiate rower in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“In both teams I have been on, we sit down and meet as a team and talk about our goals. At Hopkins, we would have certain team values that we would talk about, and we have the same thing here [at UNC], so I think that has definitely helped in our actions when you have those team values set that you’re trying to follow,” Fox said. She added onto her deep dive into the concept by elaborating on the idea “that everything you do falls in line with that, and the correlations between the two [programs]” said Fox.
Taking her studies into consideration and lessons learned in academia, Fox shared with Forster that she spoke with her team on a topic that she firmly believes in — the implementation of the “Rule of Thirds,” a concept which she utilizes to maintain focus and resilience in training, while acknowledging that consistent effort will reign in the end.
“A third of your practices are going to be great and amazing. A third of them are going to be mediocre, and a third of them are going to be pretty bad,” said the Tar Heel Sophomore. “When you show up at 20%, you’re going to give 100% of what you have,” a point she deemed was worth noting to rather emphasize that “there is natural ebbs and flows of training, and you [athletes] have to accept the failures and downsides and learn from them,” going through the motions and as Fox and her teammates swing together in Carolina Blue.
Through the demands of balancing all components of being a student-athlete at UNC, and with Fox’s early rise to popularity in the college rowing sphere, her Head Coach, Erin Neppel, has nothing but positive feedback to share with us at FSN.
“She really wants to be good at this and is a pleasure to coach,” says Neppel. If she could, she would give Fox an overall rating of an “A+” which for those unfamiliar with the rigor that it takes to stand out in crew, is something worth highlighting.
The dialogue starts here: Where will we see Fox in 2028? Will she be training under the direction of Team USA? Her story is still unwritten, but if there’s anything that’s certain is that Fox will be carving her own legacy to live in the history books for eternity.