Dahl is a fourth-year University of Virginia student-athlete now, days away from competing in her first Paralympics as a rower for Team USA in Paris.
“It was such a big setback,” Dahl said, “but looking back, it was just another thing to overcome and steer me in this new direction to a sport that isn’t hard on my feet at all – and I can do forever.”
As disappointed as Dahl was after giving up basketball, she became reinvigorated when introduced to rowing a few months later. At the suggestion of her neighbor in Minneapolis, Dahl’s ninth-grade spring break trip was to South Carolina to visit a high school rowing coach. She was intrigued and was soon back home deciding which of two local rowing clubs to join.
She chose Twin Cities Youth Rowing Club in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, because its training room wall was lined with banners representing where its alumni had gone on to row in college.
On that wall, Dahl saw the chance to gain an athletic scholarship after all.
“That was my motivation,” said Dahl, whose father, Andy, played basketball at Southern Utah University and Augustana University in South Dakota. “I wanted to look at it every day.”
As she progressed on the water, Dahl began to focus on the next step. She took another rowing-themed spring break trip her junior year of high school, this time for unofficial recruiting visits to schools in the Southeast, including UVA.
She and her family arrived on Grounds in March 2020, just as Cavaliers rowing head coach Kevin Sauer broke the news that season was canceled because of the growing threat of COVID-19.
What Dahl witnessed in that difficult moment was what convinced her to eventually accept UVA’s scholarship offer.
“Seeing how much it meant to the athletes,” Dahl recalled, “that this was going to be such a devastating loss and they’ll have to leave their friends, I was like, ‘OK, there’s something special here’ because people aren’t going to act like that if it’s not something special.”
Dahl has since thrived as a Wahoo. As a sophomore in 2023 – a season that opened Sauer’s eyes to her toughness as a rower – Dahl helped UVA’s second varsity eight win an Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
“She makes up for not being as tall as most on our team just with grit and determination,” Sauer, who retired in May after three decades with the Cavaliers, said of the 5-foot-10 Dahl. “That year, she just really came across as somebody who could push herself really, really hard.”
Dahl’s congenital deformity results in both feet being out of their standard position, affecting tendons, muscles, bones and blood vessels, but it has not stopped her from competing with the rest of the UVA team. Recognizing both her condition and her talent, Sauer inquired whether Dahl qualified for the Paralympics.
She did, leading Dahl to become part of a U.S. gold medal-winning crew at the 2023 Para Rowing Regatta in Paris. She also earned a silver medal at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Dahl officially made the U.S. 2024 Paralympic team in January.
“She’s really tough and she can push herself,” Sauer said, “but she’s also just one of those great teammates who people want to be around. My guess is she’ll probably be elected captain her senior year. She just inspires people like that.”
Once reserved about her condition, Dahl is now open about her story on social media and other outlets. Her website, created under the tutelage of Darden School of Business marketing guru Kim Whitler, includes the following on its landing page: “I am … not a casualty. I am not a product of what has happened to me, but rather what I have made happen.”
