Rowing News Interview: Wyatt Allen

Olympic champion Wyatt Allen knows a thing or two about developing rowing potential into rowing victories, having lived the experience as an athlete before becoming a coach.

Allen learned to row in the club program at the University of Virginia, and his prowess earned him the opportunity to row with U.S. National Team aspirants training at the time under Kris Korzeniowski and Mike Teti in Princeton. Soon, he was assigned to the sculling group to mature before being fed into the meat grinder of selection for the eight and four, the priority boats.

He developed so well, as both a sculler and sweep oarsman, that he won the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta in 2005, the year after winning Olympic gold in the U.S. men’s eight, an event in which he won bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Allen’s coaching career began at the University of Washington in the 2008-09 season. There, he was an assistant on the IRA-winning staff, part of UW’s three-boat sweep of the national championship. He then moved down to Berkeley to coach the Cal freshmen under his Olympic coach Mike Teti, and again his crew won the IRA.

After that, more job offers came in, and Allen took the head coaching job at Dartmouth, a struggling program at the time. “Dartmouth is where good coaches go to become mediocre,” a competitor told him. This year, Allen’s Big Green beat that coach’s varsity multiple times during an undefeated regular season that culminated in the Dartmouth varsity heavyweights’ winning a silver at Eastern Sprints, bronze at the IRA, and advancing to Saturday’s semifinal of the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley Royal Regatta.

For all that and more, Allen was honored by his peers as the 2025 Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association Coach of the Year.

Rowing News: You’ve been the head coach of the Dartmouth heavyweight program for 11 years and had some success along the way, but 2025 was your best year yet, after a good but ultimately disappointing year last year. What were the differences this year that led to the undefeated regular season, medals at Sprints and the IRA, and an impressive run at Henley?

Obviously, it starts with having a talented group of guys returning for the year. Last year was a disappointing end for the guys in the 1V, and the returners out of that boat came back this year and responded to the disappointment in just the way you would hope—by doubling down on their training and approach to this year. We also had a strong core return out of a medaling 2V and a fifth-place 3V, which created a deep competitive group this year.

Senior leadership from guys like Munroe Robinson, Julian Thomas, Miles Hudgins, and Sammy Houdaigui was a huge piece of the year. And then having Billy Bender return from the Olympics and add his leadership and rhythm in stroke seat was critical as well.

Rowing News: You were a big oarsman, winning the Henley Diamonds in the single and Olympic gold in the eight, you run a big program that races five eights, and your varsity this year was a boat of really big oarsmen. What’s the Wyatt Allen “big” approach all about?

I don’t know if there is an actual “big” approach I follow or subscribe to. I do believe in the importance of carrying a big roster in terms of depth and competitiveness. There is no substitute for internal competition and the way that can raise the level of performance for a group. It also helps a program be more consistent year to year.

When I arrived in 2014, it seemed that Dartmouth would have a good recruiting class or two, then the talent would fall off for a year or two, and then pick up again. We really made an effort to stabilize things and become more consistent, starting with our recruiting, and hopefully leading to our on-the-water performance.

In terms of the physical size of our rowers, it really depends year to year. This year’s 1V crew was tall and physical. I suspect that next year we will be smaller physically. I remember Kevin Sauer at Virginia saying to me as an undergrad that “the oar really doesn’t care how tall you are; it cares only about the force you’re able to generate.” That’s an oversimplification, of course, but it’s stuck with me a long time.

Rowing News: Your former assistant John Graves is now the women’s head coach at Dartmouth and has led a remarkable resurgence of that program. You seem to have a successful working relationship with lightweight coach Trevor Michelson, who just won silver at IRAs. How much does a high-functioning boathouse environment contribute to one squad’s success, and vice versa?

It’s a total cliché, I know, but this year was a perfect example of a “rising tide raises all ships.” It was great to come down to the boathouse each day and see all three programs excited and motivated by the prospects in front of them. And it was special to have the lightweight and heavyweight 1Vs win medals within a few minutes of each other at the IRA.

On the coaching front, I’ve learned a ton from Trevor and John, and the same is true of the way our coaching staffs work together. They’re all friends and willing to share and work together.

Rowing News: IRA and U.S. National Team watchers complain about the predominance of international recruits in top college crews, but your varsity had six Americans. Are you doing something different than your top competitors, or did it just work out that way?

We’re not doing anything that different from what our competitors are doing. Every year, we go out and recruit the best group we possibly can. For us, that has typically been two or three internationals and the rest domestic, which creates a nice balance to our roster.

Rowing News: What do you wish a younger you knew early in your coaching career?

I would describe myself early in my career as a “more is always better” kind of coach. That came out of coaching freshmen, where you can get away with that. They’re young, durable, and you have them for only one year.

I’ve learned to pace the year better the longer I’ve coached. Don’t get me wrong: I believe you have to train a lot and hard. But by being a little more strategic in how many times we ask them to go all out in a week, for example, we’ve been able both to get more out of our guys and to make it more sustainable for them over a four-year period.

Rowing News: What do you wish the rowing community knew about what you’re doing at Dartmouth?

Two things, and they’re related.

One: sculling. We have a big group of our guys rowing in singles and doubles a big part of the fall, and often in the spring. There’s no better place for small-boat rowing than the Connecticut River in the fall, and we do everything we can to take full advantage of it.

Two: We are proud of the number of guys who are pursuing rowing at the highest level when they graduate. We just had five current or recent grads take part in the U.S. National Team senior camp. It sounds like we may have two athletes selected to this year’s eight. And we’ve had a pretty consistent group of guys training with Mike Teti at California Rowing Club.

The sculling has helped create skills and opportunities for the guys when they graduate, and it’s very cool that these guys have something left in the tank after four years, both in terms of energy and passion for the sport.”

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