Making a Splash
Not all of Cincinnati’s best athletes get paid to do something they love

By Felix Winternitz

Some of Cincinnati’s best sports athletes aren’t paid professionals who compete inside a stadium, arena or ballpark. They’re amateur athletes excelling in the sports most of us will never get up the nerve to try, much less succeed at. Take Susan Namei, for instance.

Photo: Wendy Ulhman Susan Namei might go a little faster in a raging river than she does on her driveway, but the Xavier University nursing professor loves to be in her kayak.

When she’s not on campus teaching, the Xavier
University nursing professor is likely to find herself in a rugged whitewater river surging rapidly through deep canyons. The rushing currents sweep and batter, plummet and rise. The unexpected seems to lurk around every crushing wave or hovers behind every submerged boulder, obscured by the foamy rapids.

You’ve heard of the National Road, but Susan Namei’s mecca is the National River — West Virginia’s New River Gorge National River, to be specific. Among the oldest and most challenging waterways in North America, it’s become a second home for Namei, a free-flowing adventure, sports avocation and psychological expedition all packaged into one.

If you haven’t got the drift yet, Namei’s ancillary interest involves strapping herself into a sleek craft so she can propel herself into raging rivers. Fun hobby, huh?

A veteran whitewater canoeist — she teaches the sport as well as enjoys it — Namei has been a serious solo paddler since 1989. An assistant professor in nursing at Xavier as well as the Director of Academic Service Learning Semesters, she took a canoe school with the local chapter of the Sierra Club, the Miami Group.

“I took the course after a near fiasco canoe trip in Canada,” she recalls now. “I was definitely in over my head.”

How has this single pursuit managed to keep her interest for more than decade?
“Since each river is different and various water levels create different dynamics on the same river,” she says, “it’s very much of an intellectual as well as a total body sport, contrary to what everyone thinks. The equipment, boat and paddle all affect performance.

“It’s something to see the boat. They have two large and colorful airbags at each end of the canoe lashed with small ropes. There’s a saddle in the center of the boat, and knee straps. The idea is that you ‘wear the boat.’ You want to make the boat responsive to your moves.”

Namei generally travels to West Virginia on the New River because it’s the closest and least busy. But she’s also traversed rivers in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

“I started doing this as a tandem paddler, but later my husband decided to try solo canoeing,” Namei says. “So I also became a solo paddler. It’s even more challenging than tandem. It requires greater precision and timing, and there’s no one else to blame if you capsize.”

Born in St. Louis, Namei grew up primarily in Indiana and went to the University of Cincinnati for undergrad and graduate school. She’s lived in Cincinnati since college, except for three years in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. The 57-year-old nurse is married to attorney Firooz Namei, and the couple has lived in their Clifton home for more than a quarter-century, raising twin daughters (who are now grown).

“We also have a dog, Caesar, who’s a great whitewater dog,” she says, laughing. “He either swims or rides in the canoe.”

Namei finds herself remembering the great stories told around the campfire after a day spent navigating the river. The funniest things seem to happen when you are a beginner, the canoeist is quick to recall.

“The first time I was on a trip after canoe school, we went about 100 feet and got pinned on a rock,” she says. “I asked my partner, ‘Now, what do we do?’ He said, ‘I have no idea.’ Someone soon came to our rescue and gave us instructions to lean downstream. So we did and off the rock we came.

“Later, we were among several boats that capsized because of a big wave. Various estimates were given for how big, 4 to 10 feet. I imagine it was somewhere in between. As someone was trying to pull me into their canoe, I couldn’t get my leg up because my pants had fallen down around my knees. After some pulling and tugging by the rescuer, the pants came back up enough so I could get in. We had a lot of laughs that night, but after that I was hooked.”

What life lessons does Namei take from her avocation?

“Our lives are like the river — there are many turns and twists with obstacles appearing out of nowhere,” she says. “With the right skills, you can use the current to your advantage and maneuver around the obstacles. Canoeing the river is a journey and not a destination.”