Fresh Faces Lead D I Rowing Programs to NCAA Championship Regatta
More than one third—eight of 22—of the field of Division-I rowing programs invited to the 2025 NCAA Rowing Championships are led by first- or second-year head coaches. The eight-school Ivy League leads all conferences with six bids, four of which—Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Penn—have first- or second-year head coaches. Boston University, Tennessee, UCF, and Virginia do, too.
“It’s pretty surreal, I’d say unexpected,” said Dartmouth’s second-year women’s head coach Graves, whose crews earned a bid to NCAAs for the first time since 2011 after strong showings at the Ivy League Women’s Rowing Championship. “It’s fun to see them around the best teams in country and I couldn’t be more excited.”
Most of the eight new head coaches led successful 2025 spring seasons on the strength of programs built by predecessors who retired or moved on. Wes Ng, the first-year head coach of Virginia, took over one of the country’s top programs following Kevin Sauer’s retirement. In his previous job, Ng built the Penn women’s program up to earn regular bids to NCAAs, a level of performance continued by first-year Penn head coach Bill Manning this year.
“It’s wonderful to continue the success that the program experienced prior to my arrival and to help the senior class go out four-for-four with NCAA racing,” said Manning.
UCF hired Mara Allen away from Texas, where she was an assistant coach, in the summer of 2023. Earlier this spring Allen coached the Knights to a sweep of the Big 12 Championships, winning every race by open water, included a 16.8-second margin in the first eight final. UCF enters the NCAA regatta ranked 14th.
Second-year Tennessee head coach Kim Cupini’s program is among the favorites to win medals along with Stanford, Texas, Washington, Yale, and Princeton—all coached by experienced veterans.
Racing at the 2025 NCAA Rowing Championships starts Friday morning, May 30 and runs through Sunday morning June 1 on Mercer Lake, West Windsor, N.J.
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