LA JOLLA, Calif. — It might be hard to imagine real estate and rowing having much in common, but for Bailey Kim, the two worlds are bound together by a common thread: competition. One of UC San Diego men's rowing's coxswains and team captains, Bailey is also a member of the university's team for this year's NAIOP University Challenge real estate development competition. Despite having plenty to prove in her two competitive arenas, she has earned respect in both of them through hard work and caring for her teammates.
 
Bailey, currently a junior at UC San Diego, first started rowing in high school, after she realized that she likely would not get to play her first sport — lacrosse — in college. At first, she was the coxswain for the girls' team, but she really fell in love the sport when she swapped over to the same role in the boys' boat. Even then, she remembers being ready to walk away from rowing after high school.
 

"It's funny because I started out not wanting to cox (in college) and then getting back into it, and honestly I'm really glad I did," Bailey says. "The team is amazing, they're all my best friends, I feel like I'm like their mom, but they're like my older brothers at the same time, so we're all really close."

One of only three women on this season's 29-person roster, she has grown to be one of the team's best coxswains and leaders, with her teammates voting her one of the two captains ahead of this season.
 
"She has really stepped up as a leader, vocally and leading by example, just what she does on the day-to-day, the ins and outs," Head Coach Sean McCrea says. "We're blessed to have her. It's a good dynamic, it's a really good dynamic when one of your team captains has that respect from everyone."
 
It is a respect she has earned by putting her teammates first, which she says comes naturally to her.
 
"I love talking to people, I like making friends with everybody, and I think that's what my role on rowing is, Bailey says. "Yes, as a captain, I am 'in charge' of everyone, but I'm really more their friend. I have their backs completely, on anything."
 

But as much as Bailey likes her teammates, what makes rowing such a special outlet for her competitive spirit is the mental element of her role as coxswain. While she is not pulling an oar, it is her job to marshal the eight rowers who are, ensuring that they are rowing at the same rate, following the race plan, and it is up to her to adjust the race plan on the fly if necessary.
 
"I'm super competitive, obviously, I think to be in any sport you have to be, but there's another level," Bailey says. "I think there's a very mentally challenging portion of it. You're obviously not racing, but just trying to pick apart what's wrong in the boat to fix it, how to motivate certain people. I just think that portion of it is super different than any sport I played before."
 
And her competitive nature overflows into other parts of her life, not just her time in the boat. Off the water this year, Bailey got an opportunity to take part in another competition with a mental element. A real estate major, Bailey was part of UC San Diego's eight-student team for the NAIOP University Challenge, a real estate development competition against San Diego State and the University of San Diego. Put on by the San Diego chapter of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, the competition tasks teams from the three universities to consult with industry professionals to each come up with the best, most feasible use for a given plot of land in San Diego.
 
"We get to be super creative, put what we want on the site, whatever we think is the best use of the area, and we compete, and the winner gets obviously bragging rights," Bailey says. "We've won two years in a row, and no team has gotten a three-peat before, so we're hoping to get that three-peat this year. I think that's a super cool thing to at least be a part of, I love that competitive feel, I love being super busy. I'm busy nonstop, like, all the time, but I love that. I'd rather be super busy than sitting around doing nothing."
 
The only junior on the otherwise all-senior team, she has needed her strong work ethic in order to keep up with her teammates, but she has enjoyed the challenge, much like she embraced the task of earning respect as a woman on the men's rowing team.
 
"Earning respect, especially as a woman on a men's team, is super hard and challenging, but that makes it more fun," Bailey says. "With the NAIOP challenge as well, because I'm a junior, keeping up with the seniors, learning at a quicker pace, on my feet, because they've taken more classes than I have."
 
While the NAIOP team finished a close second in this year's competition, Bailey is already eyeing a potential captaincy next year, when she would be one of the most experienced members of the team.
 

"I'm hoping to do the NAIOP competition one more time because you can do it two times, so hopefully next year I think I'll have a bigger role," Bailey says. "I think it would be cool to potentially be a captain for next year, so that's something I'm looking forward to."
 
Speaking of the future, she hopes to stay in California and go into commercial real estate after graduation, especially since some of her teammates from both the NAIOP competition and the rowing team are planning to do the same.
 
"More than anything, the people that I've met are more than I could ever ask for," Bailey says. "A lot of my teammates all want to do something very similar to me or kind of related to real estate, and having that group of people at rowing really makes everything better. Having people that you trust and know is huge."

Thanks to her time with rowing and the NAIOP competition, it would be safe to bet that she will only build that network of trust in the future.
 
"As a captain I've learned a lot about leadership and talking to people," Bailey says. "And that's an experience that is priceless, a lot of people won't have the experience that I have."

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.