You’re exactly right,” said Tim Allen, executive associate athletics director at the University of Central Florida, in response to my question:

Was UCF’s hiring of Mara Allen (no relation to Tim) a case of a big-time athletic department looking at NCAA women’s rowing, and its 20 scholarships, and figuring that if the university hired one of the great coaches working as an underpaid assistant, UCF could be competing at the NCAA championships in short order?

Little wonder UCF pursued Mara; her rowing resume is platinum. She has won championships and led crews since her days as a junior oarswoman at Marin Rowing Association, where she was team captain. At the University of California, Berkeley, Allen was part of two NCAA-championship crews (2005 and 2006) and captain her last two years.

She won the 2009 World Rowing Championships in the U.S. women’s eight before joining her Cal coach, Dave O’Neil, on his staff at the University of Texas. With Allen on the coaching staff, the Longhorns won two NCAA championships, and in 2023, as associate head coach, she trained and guided the Texas four who won their event at NCAAs.

“I’ve known Mara for a really long time and I’ve enjoyed every moment working with her,” said O’Neil, “both way back in the days at Cal as a student-athlete and in the years working with her coaching at Texas.”

At UCF, by contrast, life was not so rosy, as rowers on the women’s team clashed with their coach about training standards. The discord led to the suspension and eventual resignation of Becky Cramer, who had coached at UCF for 20 years, first as an assistant, and then, from 2008 on, as head coach.

During her time in Orlando, Cramer led the Knights to five consecutive NCAA-championship appearances between 2015 and 2019, but it didn’t end well, and Athletic Director Terry Mohajir, who is also a vice president of the university, made changes to the rowing program as UCF moved from the American Athletic Conference up to the Power Five conference Big 12—the big leagues of NCAA sports.

UCF is serious about athletic success and isn’t shy about describing Mohajir’s job: “hiring coaches who win championships, raising money for first-class athletics facilities and support resources necessary to be nationally competitive.”

Tim Allen served as director of football operations at big-time football schools Kansas, Minnesota, and Michigan State during some of the best years in each program’s history. Mohajir had worked with Allen at Kansas and invited him to join the senior management team at UCF.

“When [legendary football coach] Mark Dantonio retired at Michigan State, Terry asked me if I wanted to come be on his senior management team. I didn’t want to be involved with football any more, so I was here for a couple years, and then last spring Terry made a change in rowing.

“I walked in the day the change happened, and he said, ‘Hey, you want to be the sport administrator for rowing?’, and I can tell you it’s been one of the great experiences of my life.

“When I started the search, the first thing I did was call some of the top coaches in the country, and one name kept coming up: Mara Allen.”

In the spring, Tim Allen was in Austin visiting family and had lunch with Mara.

“I couldn’t have been more impressed,” recalled Tim. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is exactly who we are looking for.’”

But Mara Allen had no plans to leave a place where she was successful and happy. She told Tim she was flattered that he took the time to interview her but there was only “about a five percent chance” she would say goodbye to Texas.

“I walked out and I called Terry [Mojahir] on the phone. I said, ‘Terry, I got some good news and some bad news. The good news is this is exactly who we want. She fits perfectly’” into UCF’s plans to elevate its rowing program to national prominence.

“The bad news is that I’m not sure she’s interested.”

So Tim Allen continued his search, staying in touch with Mara Allen by text. When she was at nearby Nathan Benderson Park for the USRowing Youth National Championships in June, Allen convinced her and and her husband to visit UCF and it’s fully buoyed 2,000-meter course on a private lake with student-athlete housing that resembles an Olympic Village.

No one would speak on the record about the size of UCF’s offer, but it was described as “life-changing,” while Texas lost Allen by refusing to pony up a raise in the single-digit thousands of dollars.

“We gave her a five-year contract because we want her to know that we are totally committed to her. We’re going to make this work,” said Tim Allen. “To be quite honest, she’s exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were high.”

“What I love about UCF is that it feels like a small athletic department right now that’s in its growth stage,” said Mara Allen.

O’Neil, who fought to keep Mara Allen at Texas, is gracious about Allen’s taking the head-coaching job at UCF.

“She’s a valued friend,” O’Neil said, “and I’m really proud of her and excited to see what she turns the UCF program into.”

“She’s done a great job. She’s hired a really good staff,” said Tim Allen. “They’re aggressive, they’re positive, and they know how to build a team.”

“The same reason that I came to UCF is a reason for any 17-, 18-, or 19-year old to come as well,” Mara Allen said. “We can get in on the ground floor and we’re looking to move up and do great things over the next four or five years.

“We focus a lot on rowing and spending time in boats and spending time on the water. Rowing is the sport. So let’s do that. And then if we do well at that, that is the reward.”

Senior rower Teegan Fookes, who has experienced all the changes at UCF, loves rowing for Allen.

“I cannot speak highly enough of Mara,” Fookes said. “She is not only an incredible coach but also an incredible person. She really cares about us as athletes and people. She’s so driven, and the culture she brings to the team—enjoying the hard work and being out there—has made UCF an awesome place.

“I’ve definitely seen a huge shift,” said sophomore Tash Voulanas, “to an environment where the athletes on the team strive to improve, to make changes that may not come easily, and to become the best versions of themselves.”

In Allen’s first season, UCF hasn’t shied from competition. The Knights hosted the University of Connecticut and Jacksonville University at home, a victorious start to the season, and then made the first of three short trips to Sarasota’s Nathan Benderson Park to face 15 other Division I programs in the Sunshine State Invitational, finishing second overall.

As this issue went to press, UCF was preparing to return to Benderson to race higher-ranked schools at the Big 10 Invitational and will compete there again in the Big 12 championships. It’s a brutal racing schedule for any team but especially for a first-year, first-time head coach taking over a program emerging from turmoil.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” said Mara Allen. “But we’re getting some things figured out. It’s been good.

“Most of the administrative staff here also were coaches, so everyone above me supporting me understands what my job entails, and that is really special, because at a lot of universities, the administrators have always been administrators.”

UCF began receiving votes in April in the third weekly Pocock CRCA Coaches Poll. If the Knights make it into the top 20, the athletic administration will be “over the moon,” Mara Allen said.

Meanwhile, Allen is dealing with the same challenges as any other coach of young adults.

“We had a team meeting this morning about the fact that words matter. Words are really important—how they talk to each other, how they talk to the trainer, how they talk to me, how they talk about me—all of that matters. Those kinds of life lessons will help them become not only better athletes, I hope, but also better people.”

In 2023, Deerfield Academy was the best rowing high school in America, with both the boys and girls varsity eights the top scholastic (non-club) finishers at the 2023 USRowing Youth National Championships (sixth and seventh, respectively, in the A final).

It was the first year student-athletes at the prestigious 227-year old school raced in eights instead of fours, and while success came immediately for Deerfield—both the girls and boys crews won the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association (NEIRA) varsity-eight championships and went on to race at Henley Royal Regatta—success did not come overnight.

It was years in the making, the result of a confluence of the three things behind every top rowing program: great athletes, great coaches, and great support.

Great Athletes

Coach Spencer Washburn downplays his role in the dominant year his boys crews had in 2023.

“We had the right group in place to make the switch.”

A measure of the fierce competitiveness of New England prep-school rowing is the fact that this spring Deerfield has been beaten across the line already by Salisbury School and Philips Academy (Andover), where Spencer and Deerfield’s girls coach Parker Washburn grew up and where their brother, Taylor, is the boys coach.

Their father, Peter Washburn, coached them at Andover, rowed at Syracuse with his two brothers, and also grew up at an elite boarding school—Delaware’s St. Andrew’s School—where his father, Davis Washburn, taught and coached rowing for 40 years.

“The strength of the team begins and ends with the students who choose to participate,” said Parker, giving credit for Deerfield’s historic 2023 season first and foremost to the athletes.

“We had some great leadership. The kids were exceptionally patient and when they had their opportunities they made the most of them.”

As a highly selective boarding school with a strong academic tradition dating to its founding in 1797, Deerfield Academy attracts high-achieving students exclusively. With an endowment of $791 million, the school is able to cover 100 percent of the financial need of everyone admitted.

“We’re rowing, but more broadly, the kids are looking to strive for excellence in all areas of school life,” Spencer said.

In recent years, an increasing number of incoming students are arriving at the western Massachusetts school on the Connecticut River with rowing experience—and high expectations.

“The first year I was here, maybe there were one or two kids who had done any rowing. And now there’s a pretty significant number,” Spencer said. “It injects a level of energy and experience into the program from day one. That’s been fun to see. It’s really different from 10 years ago.”

Great Coaches

Deerfield offered club rowing 40 years ago and got serious about varsity rowing with the hiring of accomplished coaches, including but not limited to the Washburns.

“Ten years ago when I got here, I had 28 boys on the roster,” Spencer said. “Last spring, I had 57.”

That kind of growth is great for the depth and impact of a rowing program on a student body, but the experience of athletes suffers if opportunities to race can’t be found for nine boats of rowers and coxswains in coxed fours.

“It got to the point over the past couple of springs where running a fours program with that many kids was a real challenge,” said Spencer.

Parker faced the same challenges with the girls the year before the switch to eights.

“The team was growing. There were 39 girls who wanted to row that year, and getting them on the water consistently and finding great opportunities for them against other fours programs was challenging.

“Certainly there was a lot of success in that season. But it didn’t feel great,” said Parker, that the girls starting out were having a different experience and opportunities to race than the more seasoned girls.

“Last year, we had 46 girls on the team. Providing a positive experience for everybody was challenging as well. We have great kids here. The students are committed to the team, committed to the sport, and committed to their development in a way that makes me feel fortunate.”

Deerfield Academy had a successful history as a fours program, including winning recent NEIRA and Youth National championships.

“I came to interview 11 years ago,” recalled Spencer. “The then head of school, Margarita Curtis, closed our conversation by saying, ‘I want to be the best high-school program in the country.’ That’s what I walked away with from the conversation: They’re invested in making this not just really good, which is what it was, but even better.

“I like to dig into my dad’s memories about what he had to do [as a boarding-school coach in the past], like drive the bus. We certainly get support in a way he never had.”

Spencer and his wife recruited Parker and his wife from another New England prep school. In addition to coaching rowing together, Spencer’s wife, Megan, and Parker’s wife, Liz, also teach in the science department together.

“As we got to know the school more, our professional priorities aligned really well,” Parker said. “I felt like there was going to be a lot of growth in my own teaching by moving here.

“In talking with Bob Howe, the athletic director, he had high aspirations for the girls team. There was growth happening on the girls side, but perhaps not to the same extent” as the boys, who won their last USRowing Youth National Championship in the coxed four in 2022, before switching to eights.

“It’s been fun,” said Spencer, “from both a working and family standpoint to have them on campus. I’ve got three boys and they’ve got little girls, and my boys love the fact that they have cousins who live right across campus.”

Great Support

When boys coach Spencer Washburn presented the proposal for the New England boarding school to switch to eights, there was good reason, considering the expense and likely headaches, to expect pushback from the administration. Instead, he found support.

The Deerfield CFO’s first question, Spencer recalled: “Is this what’s best for the students?”

“I laid out my thoughts and what we might want to do to get there, and they’ve done it.”

Deerfield is one of a few high schools to have moving-water indoor rowing tanks, part of a new athletic complex that includes an ice hockey rink, indoor track, and turf field.

“They went through and asked all the coaches, ‘What do you want? You guys want an erg room, right?’ I said, ‘No, we can put ergs anywhere,’” Spencer said. What the rowing program wanted, and got, were tanks.

“It just pops as a facility to walk through that place. We’ve got kids in there taking their first strokes to kids who are heading off to college, and it’s useful to all of them. It’s been a great piece of equipment to have at our disposal.”

Deerfield goes to Florida to train in the second week of its two-week spring break, which gets the New England school on the water—something the weather kept them from doing every day when they got back this year.

Deerfield also benefits from extraordinary support from parents.

“Every year, we have a group of parents who ask, ‘How can we support this program? How can we support the experience of our students?’” said Spencer. Despite having the children of Olympians and other accomplished rowing parents on the team, the Deerfield coaches haven’t experienced the kind of meddling common in youth sports today.

“The parents have been exceptionally supportive, not just of the team, but of their children in terms of having a good perspective on what’s important,” Parker said.

Even though Deerfield is a prep school, as in preparing students for college, Parker says there’s no emphasis on college recruitment.

“If they’re interested in rowing in college, I’m happy for them to engage in the recruitment process. But what I tell the students is, I’m here to support them, but it’s their process to own. Conversations are about what schools—not necessarily what rowing programs—but what schools are you most interested in.”

Having successfully transitioned to eights rowing in the spring, is sculling in the fall next for Deerfield?

“That’s actually a conversation that I’ve begun with our director,” said Spencer. “We don’t want kids rowing from September to June. We feel great about the fact that our kids are not rowing year-round, that they are involved meaningfully in other things on campus, whether it be other sports or theater or student government.

“But we also look at the rowing landscape, and sculling and small-boat rowing are becoming an important part of both preparation for college and becoming a better, more complete rower.”

For Parker Washburn, who rowed at Andover, Harvard, and Craftbury’s Green Racing Project, Deerfield is proving to be a complete place already.

“I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to row under some great coaches and with some great teammates. I feel like this is another one of those places where we strive for excellence not only in rowing but in everything really.”