People who don't pay much attention to sports -- and even those among us who do enjoy following the athletic exploits of others or actively participate ourselves -- may get tired of the "sports as a metaphor for life" cliches that often overflow the sports pages, networks and radio stations.

After all, in the grand scheme of global accomplishments, what are sports, really? The ability to knock a white ball into a hole in the ground; to throw a leather ball through a hoop; to run faster than a bunch of other people. ...

None of those skills on their own ever solved world hunger or cured cancer, and none ever will.

But on a deeper level, sports can teach us a great deal about ourselves -- about our character, our perseverance and our ability to achieve things physically and mentally we never thought we could. Sometimes, cliches become cliches because, well, they ring true.

Monica Tranel sees the value in sports. Now a 42-year-old (until this coming Monday anyway) mother of two daughters and attorney with the firm of Luxan & Murfitt, Tranel was, for much of the 1990s, one of the best rowers in the world. She's got the gold medals from the world championships and two appearances in the Summer Olympics to prove it.

Effectively retired from competitive rowing since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Tranel applies lessons daily in both the courthouse and her home that she learned during countless hours of training and competing on rivers and lakes around the globe.

"Sports organize your thinking and how you live life," she said. "It teaches you how to accept not being good at something or to develop certain skills. You learn how to bring out the best in yourself. There's a greater social benefit to sports. You see people push themselves beyond anything they thought was possible, and that's inspirational.

"We can be better than we are, and that's a great message to be reminded of every day."

The sixth of 10 children in her family, Tranel grew up on a ranch between Billings and Miles City and didn't touch an oar until she reached Gonzaga University. She rowed in Spokane, then increased her involvement when she moved on to the Rutgers School of Law in Camden, N.J., just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, the rowing mecca of the country.

From the outset, Tranel was drawn to solo rowing, or sculling, though she spent much of the 1990s rowing "eights" -- a team of eight rowers with a coxwain in the back of the boat who alternately steers, encourages and browbeats the team.

"The appeal of the eight is it's big and it's loud and it goes fast," she said. "It's a team function and you really are so meshed with the people you're rowing with. We rowed for two hours at a time or more, and the rhythm of it ... it's visceral, you feel it.

"And you're right in the water, so you hear it. You hear the oar catch the water, hear the bubbles in the water. You're with other people, you get support from them, you share all that as a team. Unlike basketball or football, there's really no standout person. It's sort of the ideal team sport in a lot of ways. Everyone has to pull their weight."

Literally.

Tranel just missed a spot on the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team, but she says that wasn't a huge disappointment. She still had years left to compete.

"I wasn't ready," she said. "I hadn't invested 10 years of my life at that point. I was new at it and thought it was fun."

For the next few years, she woke at 5 a.m., rowed on the Schuylkill River, practiced law all day, rowed again, ate and went to bed. Sports can pull a person into a singular and somewhat narcissistic lifestyle, almost by necessity -- elite athletes focus on the goal, and by extension their own bodies and minds, 24 hours a day.

"What's hard to explain is the way that you genuinely move into a completely different lifestyle. Your goal is so pure, there's not really a debate about should I do that or shouldn't I do that," Tranel said. "And I never thought I was missing out. I thought, I have this great lifestyle."

She earned a seat in the U.S. eight for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and remembers sitting on the starting line before her event's final race, her parents and all nine siblings among the crowd.

It wasn't a moment for reflection.

"You're so incredibly focused," she said. "You're thinking, is my oarlock tight? Do I have a little bit of water on my hands? Am I sitting where I'm supposed to be? Is my oar where it's supposed to be? My hat? My breathing? It's not that global perspective. It's the practical details."

The record book shows the U.S. team finished fourth, which to someone who doesn't follow the sport might appear to be an awesome accomplishment.

But to Tranel and her teammates, at the time it was anything but.

Just a month earlier, the American eight had set a new world record for the 2,000-meter distance in Europe, and came to Atlanta as the pick for a gold medal.

"'96 was the first international race I'd competed in when I hadn't won a medal," Tranel said. "We were the world champions, the favorites. We got a ton of attention. Every practice there was someone there with a camera or a microphone, and we weren't used to it. We were rowers."

She can still recall the sinking feeling of watching the race slip away, of being beaten off the starting line by the Romanian team, of seeing the Canadians sprinting past at the end to claim bronze.

"We just didn't perform," Tranel said. "It's the worst feeling in the world. It was stunning. It was this feeling of incredible emptiness.

"And it's not that I didn't win a medal, it's that I worked so hard to put everything together to perform, and we didn't have our best race when it mattered. And that's the hardest part of it. You want to be judged by what you're capable of by the world at large, but you're judged by how you perform."

But often defeat can provide the best lessons, and Tranel said that stinging loss helped teach her how to measure herself. There will always be people who will tell you you're the best -- or that you aren't -- but ultimately it's up to each of us to judge whether we've accomplished all we can.

"That's what I've tried to carry over to my girls," she said. "You have to have your own internal barometer to use to determine whether you're successful. You have to be truthful about your performance. It was great to be in the Olympics. It was an incredible accomplishment, but we failed on that day."

Soon after Atlanta Tranel decided to focus her energy on the single scull.

"Most rowers are team-oriented people, but single is always where my heart was," she said. "It's just you, it's so raw, there's no cushion, no excuses, nowhere to hide. It's pure, it's authentic."

A seat in the eight awaited her for the Sydney Games in 2000, but she ultimately decided to compete alone.

"I just agonized over it," she said. "There was a lot of baggage still from '96. If I go into the single I really do have control. It's not my best chance of winning, but it's my best chance of walking away after the Olympics saying I did my best, trying to control that intangible in sports, which is performing when it matters."

She missed her goal of making the finals, which would have meant a top-six finish. Tranel ended up 12th, and talks today like she ended her career with no regrets.

That doesn't mean, though, that retirement was easy. Many athletes struggle with how to fill the void left by their sport, and Tranel was no exception.

She moved to Helena, worked for the Public Service Commission for four years and got married in the process. After a short stint working in Washington, D.C., for Sen. Conrad Burns, her family returned to Montana (Butte) in 2005 and she entered private practice in 2006. The family returned to Helena late last year.

Today, her practice includes a variety of business cases, including telecom clients, associations, real estate cases and occasional litigation.

Starting a family and practicing law have each taught Tranel to focus attention outside herself -- which she says can be just as rewarding as working toward an athletic goal.

"As a lawyer, what do I get out of my cases and representing my clients? I get the satisfaction of knowing I gave them some measure of peace in their life. Having lost in '96 makes it easier to assess what my clients' needs are, because it's not about whether we win or lose a case, it's about them and what they need to get out of this to go on with their lives. If I can give my clients what they need, as measured by them -- it's their life and their case, I'm just a tool to get them where they need to go."

That's not to say, though, that Tranel's competitive flame has been completely extinguished. The rowing machine in her house is a long way from Atlanta's Lake Lanier, but sometimes she can still hear the "whoosh" of the oar through the water.

"Every time the Olympics come up, even last year, there's a little voice in my head that says, 'Do you want to do it? C'mon, you can go back, take a leave of absence from work, train, your husband would be fine with it,' " she said with a laugh. "I wish I could go back and compete with the emotional maturity and perspective I have after having kids. I think athletes perform their best when they're relaxed, and the Olympics really are a game, they're for fun, it's not life or death."

Sounds like there's a lesson in there for all of us.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com