The University of California, Berkeley’s men’s rowing head coach position has been endowed, thanks to a $1.5-million gift from Cal alums Jeff and Patty Williams. The gift is part of the matching endowment challenge led by the Rogers family.

The Williams Family Men’s Rowing Head Coach endowment precedes next year’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Cal men’ rowing program.

“We are immeasurably grateful for Jeff and Patty’s generosity,” said Cal Athletics Director Jim Knowlton. “Our program has set the standard for intercollegiate men’s rowing, and their gift will help us enormously as we strive for continued financial stability.”

The Williamses’ love of rowing generally and the leadership of Cal head coach Scott Frandsen specifically led to their supporting the men’s rowing program.

“Scott is a great leader, molder, and educator of young men. We like how the program is flourishing under him,” Jeff Williams said. “It’s manifested in success both on the water and in the classroom. Having a program that has six and seven boats on the water in practice each day—that’s a lot of guys who aren’t in the first or second varsity and who get to race only a handful of times each year. But they still want to continue to put in the time and the effort necessary to row at Cal, and that speaks volumes about the health of the program under Scott.”

Frandsen, a 2002 alumnus, won three consecutive IRA national championships with Cal between 2000 and 2002 and represented Canada in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Olympics, winning a silver medal in the pair with Dave Calder in Beijing in 2008. He is in his 13th year of coaching at Cal, the last seven as head coach.

After Cal won the first-ever Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) championship, Frandsen was named MPSF Coach of the Year, and Cal varsity stroke Frederick Breuer was named MPSF Athlete of the Year. (MPSF succeeded the Pac-12 men’s rowing conference).

In May, Breuer also received Cal Athletics’ Jake Gimbel Award, given to the graduating male student-athlete with the highest GPA.

Varsity men’s lightweight coach Marty Crotty has stepped down from his position to pursue other professional opportunities, Princeton University announced in a June 3 press release. Crotty is a co-founder of Princeton CarbonWorks, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of carbon fiber bicycle wheels for competitive cycling and triathlon.

“The Princeton boathouse has been part of my life for over 30 years and always will be,” said Crotty. “I want to especially thank Mike Teti for introducing Princeton to me; Curtis Jordan, for giving me the chance to coach at Princeton, and my current colleagues Lori Dauphiny, Paul Rassam, and Greg Hughes with whom I have worked with for more than 20 years.”

Crotty coached the Princeton lightweight men to two IRA national championships in his 15 years as the head coach and won two more as a heavyweight oarsman at Princeton, graduating in 1998.

“Stepping away from coaching, and from Princeton University, was a difficult decision,” said Crotty, “but I’m looking forward to the new opportunities that lie ahead. And I will always be Princeton Rowing’s number one fan on the shores of Lake Carnegie.”

Judge Claudia Wilken approved the settlement in the class-action House v. NCAA suit on Friday, June 6, paving the way for colleges to directly pay athletes for the first time since the NCAA’s founding in 1906. Starting July 1, colleges can pay $20.5 million to athletes, with football expected to receive 75 percent, basketball 20 percent, and the remaining five percent split all the remaining sports. Leagues can opt out of the settlement, as the Ivy League indicated it would in January.

Harvard prevailed over Yale in all four races on Connecticut’s Thames River in the 158th edition of the Harvard-Yale regatta, June 6-7.

The Crimson started the sweep on Friday evening in the fourth varsity eight race, winning the James Snider Cup by five seconds over two miles. Saturday racing started with the two-mile third varsity race for the New London Cup, won by open water by Harvard’s undefeated, Eastern Sprints, and IRA champion crew. The second varsity three-mile race for the F. Valentine Chappell Trophy went to Harvard following a nearly 20-second win.

Harvard’s varsity won the 7 p.m. premier, four-mile race for the Sexton Cup in deteriorating conditions by 14 seconds. Yale stayed close for much of the race, but the Eastern Sprints champions pulled away in later stages of the race to complete the sweep and capture the Hoyt C. Pease and Robert Chappell Jr. Trophy for winning the majority of Saturday’s three races.