Plugging the Talent Drain

Every rowing coach has seen it happen.

Seniors graduate after four years fully immersed in our sport. They love rowing. They understand training, culture, leadership, teamwork, and commitment. Maybe they even express interest in coaching. For a moment, it looks like the sport might retain another lifer.

Then reality arrives.

Student loans. Rent. Relationships. Parental pressure. Career pressure. Geographic instability. The realization that passion alone may not support a future.

And rowing loses another coach before that career ever begins.

For decades, the sport has talked about “keeping people in rowing.” But veteran coach Peter Steenstra, now in his 16th year as head men’s and women’s coach at Bates College, believes the problem is larger than retention. The real issue is whether rowing has built a professional structure capable of sustaining people long term.

“I remember this conversation 25 or 30 years ago,” he said recently while driving to the New England Championships. “This has been a concern for a long time.”

The Early Promise of Professionalization

In many ways, rowing has improved.

The rise of Division I assistant-coaching positions created a more legitimate entry point into the profession. A generation ago, assistant coaches often survived on stipends or volunteer roles. Today, some first assistants earn salaries that resemble real careers.

“That was part of the solution early on,” Steenstra said. “You could graduate from college, stay in the sport, and actually have a job coaching that wasn’t just a $10,000 stipend.”

For the first time, rowing appeared capable of building a coaching ladder. Graduate assistants, third-assistant roles, recruiting responsibilities, and administrative positions gave young coaches a foothold.

But the structure remains fragile.

“You get five to 10 years in,” Steenstra said, “and now you’re 33 instead of 23. Maybe you’re married. Maybe you have kids. Suddenly making a dramatic move across the country for a slightly better salary doesn’t make sense anymore.”

The result is a profession that still leaks talented people at every stage.

Young Coaches Need Ownership—Not Just Hours

One of the most important points Steenstra raised has little to do with salary.

Too often, young assistants spend years working hard without developing professional autonomy.

“What skills are you actually learning?” he asked. “Are you learning how to be a head coach in some of these roles?”

Many assistants organize travel, supervise novice athletes, or manage smaller boats within larger programs. But those responsibilities don’t always translate into meaningful professional growth.

A second assistant may oversee the four technically, but everyone still understands it belongs to the head coach’s program.

That distinction matters.

Young coaches stay in the profession when they feel genuine ownership—when they recruit athletes independently, design training programs, build culture, mentor crews, manage alumni relations, or develop strategic responsibilities they can truly claim as their own.

“We don’t have a fully developed coaching infrastructure,” Steenstra said. “What does that second assistant actually own? What can they put on a resume?”

For head coaches hoping to retain assistants, that question may matter as much as compensation.

The Volunteer Culture Dilemma

Rowing’s volunteer culture remains both its greatest strength and one of its biggest obstacles.

Our sport survives because people care deeply enough to donate time, energy, and labor. Regattas run because volunteers show up before sunrise and work past sunset. Programs exist because parents tow trailers, organize food tents, and raise money for equipment.

But that same culture can unintentionally undermine professional development.

Steenstra pushed back hard against the old-school mentality that young coaches should “pay their dues” through unpaid labor.

“I don’t like it when old-timers say all assistants should begin as volunteers anyway,” he said. “I just don’t think that’s the right way to look at it.”

That expectation creates barriers precisely when rowing should be welcoming young professionals into the sport.

“It shouldn’t be such an obstacle to be part of this sport.”

The challenge is especially acute because rowing already demands so much financially from athletes and families. Tuitions and costs to attend college are enormous. Travel costs are high—and rising. Regatta entry fees will need to go up to catch up with inflation.

Steenstra noted that entering roughly 10 crews at a championship regatta recently cost nearly $5,000 in entry fees alone. Yet even at that level, much of the event infrastructure still depends on volunteers. The economics of rowing remain deeply uneven.

Other Sports Offer Entire Ecosystems

Perhaps the most striking comparison Steenstra made involved youth hockey.

Kids barely into their teenage years already understand there are multiple professional pathways within that sport, not just as athletes or coaches but as referees, administrators, event staff, trainers, and development personnel.

“In hockey, those kids know you can become a referee and make a very good living,” Steenstra said. “There’s an awareness of an entire infrastructure around the sport.”

Rowing rarely offers that visibility.

Outside of coaching, our sport provides relatively few clearly defined career tracks. Even leadership positions within rowing organizations often depend on passion more than financial sustainability.

As Steenstra sees it, rowing still operates largely as a grassroots ecosystem trying to support professional expectations.

The Hard Conversation Coaches Must Have

For many college rowers, coaching simply doesn’t make financial sense.

Not when graduates leave school carrying enormous debt.

Not when entry-level salaries remain modest.

Not when the ceiling itself appears limited.

“When the highest-paid rowing coach in the world maybe makes around $300,000,” Steenstra said, “it doesn’t exactly scream that this is a career you can really do well with financially.”

Compare that to college hockey, where even mid-tier Division I coaches can surpass those numbers.

The comparison isn’t meant to diminish rowing. It simply highlights the reality young coaches are evaluating. Many collegiate rowers are pre-med students or future attorneys, management consultants, engineers, or bankers with ambitions extending far beyond what they see in our sport. They love rowing—but love alone may not justify staying.

So How Do We Keep Them?

The answer may begin with honesty.

Rowing cannot rely exclusively on passion to sustain its coaching pipeline. Passion gets people started. Infrastructure keeps them.

That means:
• Paying assistants like professionals.

• Giving young coaches meaningful   ownership.

• Creating clearer developmental

pathways.

• Expanding opportunities beyond

traditional coaching roles.

• Treating retention as organizational

responsibility—not personal sacrifice.

Most important, it means recognizing that keeping student athletes in rowing after graduation is not just about cheap labor. It’s about preserving and growing the institutional knowledge, culture, and continuity of our sport.

Every rower and coach who leaves our sport takes experience with them.

Every one who stays strengthens the future of rowing.

And for a sport built so heavily on relationships, that may be the most important investment rowing can make.

CHIP DAVIS is the founder and publisher of Rowing News. An oarsman from birth, he rowed on championship crews at St. Paul’s School and Dartmouth College, where he captained the lightweights. Now he sculls in Vermont when the weather is suitable and ergs the other half of the year.