Susan Francia, a Penn grad with two Olympic gold medals, now has a mom with a Nobel Prize

Fifteen years later, Susan Francia can still conjure up the whole scene. Beijing Olympics, a University of Pennsylvania graduate in the big U.S. boat, the women’s eight, an underdog boat rowing for gold. Francia, an Abington High graduate who picked up the sport in college, was the first in her boat to realize the finish line had just been crossed. Francia dropped her oar. Gold medalist.

Her mom was there?

“Oh yeah,” Francia said over the phone Monday evening. “There was like a family area. I remember pouring into my mother’s arms.”

» READ MORE: Olympic gold medalist Susan Francia on the time she sat next to Kobe Bryant on the bus

Fast forward to Monday morning. Francia lives in San Diego with her husband and two children. It was 6:30 a.m., her husband out of town, her 2½-year-old son waking her up, “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

A late sleep for a typically early riser. Francia looked at her phone. Texts, missed calls. Quick words … “Congratulations on your Mom!” Missed calls and texts from her husband. A missed call from Mom. Francia caught up quickly.

“I was, like, crying,” Francia said. “My son was .. he doesn’t know why I’m crying. He was saying, ‘Mommy, it’s OK.’ ”

It sure was … Susan Francia, two-time Olympic gold medalist, now daughter of a Nobel Prize winner.

The news of this Nobel in medicine had been announced in Sweden as Francia slept. The Inquirer noted, “Two [former] University of Pennsylvania scientists, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, who discovered how to harness the power of messenger RNA — the genetic linchpin of the first vaccines against COVID-19.”

» READ MORE: Nobel Prize announcement

Francia knew the announcement was due. She had sent her mother an email the day before, telling her how much she loved her, that this Nobel wasn’t why she toiled all those years. “I love you no matter what,” Francia wrote her mother.

These Nobel awards, Francia said, “To us it seems like such obscure discoveries, and to them, it’s their life’s work.”

She knew about Mom’s struggles. Realize Karikó's research work wasn’t typically applauded or even always supported. There was what she described as a forced retirement from Penn, before the private sector provided the support to continue.

“These memories come flooding back,” Francia said. “My mom getting rejected.”

More words came back, Francia taking them with her to the river.

“If it is not good enough, you fix it,” Francia said her mother would tell her. “Make it good enough and reach for the next time.”

“This is what she instilled in me,” the rower added.

It wasn’t just the two of them. Susan’s father managed apartment buildings in Montgomery County. He was always there, for mother and daughter. They’d moved here from Hungary when Susan was 2.

» READ MORE: Who is Penn Nobel prize winner Katalin Karikó?

“My dad is the unsung hero,” Francia said. “He’s the rock.”

An ergometer eventually became standard issue in the house, for Susan, who took to the sport quickly as a novice at Penn.

“My mother started rowing herself,” Francia said, meaning rowing indoors. “So did my dad. I got a rowing machine. They were like, let’s see what this silly thing is all about. That’s what my mom does — it’s her stress relief.”

Still rowing herself?

“I will be racing at the Head of the Charles, for my wonderful alma mater,” Francia said of signing on to row with a Penn alumni boat in Boston later this month. “I’ve been getting myself ready.”

Francia coached high school and club rowing in San Diego after her 10-year run on the United States national team, gave that up, now leads a sales team for a biotechnology company that sells reagents and raw material for the very vaccine. “My mom was technically a customer,” Susan said. “We were doing negotiations.”

» READ MORE: In 2012, Susan Francia knew her rowing dream meant struggles

So she didn’t have to tell anyone at work about what had just happened. They knew.

“She had these discoveries, not just one big one, but multiple building blocks,” Francia said. “For me, 2020 was the holy [expletive], this is going to impact millions of people.”

What a tale. If Mom hadn’t moved over from Temple to Penn, maybe Susan doesn’t end up a Quaker herself. Maybe she never picks up an oar. Now, Olympic gold medals sound like footnotes in the family history.

“As I was growing up, all I see is her being passionate and never backing down,” Francia said. “So I was like, I need to be passionate and I need to not back down. At that point, there was zero recognition …”

Francia meant for her mother’s work. Also, a fine little metaphor for the hours put into a sport such as rowing, before the national team was even a dream.

“It was the work you put into it,” Francia said, now understanding where it can all lead, at least for one family.