Cassandra Cunningham
Contact: cassandracunningham@priorproperplanning.com
Coach Cunningham joins us for her third year. She spent ten years assisting with the U.S. Junior Women’s Rowing Team. During three of those years, she was the Women’s Assistant Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania. Cunningham now specializes in personal fitness instruction and individualized college counseling.
Coach Cunningham began her athletic quest at Mills High School in Millbrae, CA where she competed in cross-country and track for four years. Entering college she began her next sport in women’s rowing. While at Sacramento State, Coach Cunningham earned three state championship titles as well as winning the 1995 Pacific Coast Rowing Championships in the Women’s Varsity Eight. In 1996 she earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Physical Education. After graduation she spent three years training with the Women’s U.S. Rowing National Team. She is a five-time winner at the US National Elite Championships. She earned two international silver medals in the women’s lightweight quad at the 1998 World Rowing Championships and the 1999 Pan American Games. After her time on the national team, Coach Cunningham earned a Master of Education in Administration specializing in Athletic Directing at the University of Massachusetts while simultaneously coaching the school’s varsity women’s lightweight rowing team. Following graduate school, she moved back to California where to began teaching Physical Education at San Francisco City College and coaching boy’s rowing at Junipero Serra High School transforming it from a club program to a varsity sport.
Pete Cathey
Contact: petecathey@gmail.com
Pete is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, and a Certified Functional Strength Coach (CFSC) through Mike Boyle’s nationally recognized Strength and Conditioning program for high school, college, professional and masters athletes. This will be Pete’s seventh year as the onsite functional mobility coach at Northeast Rowing Center. Pete has also enjoyed being an on-the-water coach at Northeast, in previous years.
Before becoming a strength coach, Pete spent 20 years as the head rowing coach at the University of New Hampshire. During his tenure, Pete’s crews claimed titles in heavyweight and lightweight divisions at the New England Championships and the ECAC Championship Regatta. In total, UNH’s crews won thirty medals at the New Englands, during his twenty years of head coaching. Pete twice received coach-of-the-year awards from the New Englands and the ECAC. Pete’s coaching began as an intern at Brown University, where his four claimed the bronze medal at the IRA.
Pete’s rowing career began at Brown University and was highlighted by winning the Varsity Challenge Cup at the IRA Regatta and competing internationally at the Henley Royal Regatta. Pete continues to enjoy rowing and training, and he also enjoys skiing, hiking, and camping.
Pete lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children. He is currently a personal trainer and bootcamp instructor at Wildcat Fitness.
Catie Flynn
Contact: cflynn2@bates.edu
At Bates, Catie enjoys inspiring student-athletes to love rowing as her coaches did for her.
Flynn's passion for the sport of rowing developed while competing for the first time in the eighth grade at Boston Latin School. Since that first experience, she has rowed every summer, fall, winter, and spring, gaining experience in small boats, eights, sculling, sweeping, port, and starboard. A two-year captain for the Boston Latin team, Flynn's successes earned her the opportunity to compete at Holy Cross University in Worcester, Mass.
Al Morrow
Contact: almorrow08@gmail.com
Al Morrow, AMP Rowing and former National Team Coach, Rowing Canada
We are thrilled to have Coach Morrow re-join our staff this year. Al has over 40 years of rowing experience at all levels.
As a rower, Morrow was a member of six National Rowing Teams from 1970 - 1976 and won a bronze medal in the Men's Four at the 1975 Pan American Games. He began coaching after the 1976 Olympics as head coach of the men's rowing team at University of British Columbia, then on to University of Victoria as head coach. In 1988, Morrow moved to the London Ontario National Rowing Team Training Center, and became head coach of the Canadian women's rowing team in 1990. Under Morrow's leadership, Canadian rowers won a combined 15 World Championships and 8 Olympic medals - 4 Gold, 1 Silver and 3 Bronze at the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2008 Olympic Games.
Friendly and personable, Morrow has been able to keep an impressively low profile while motivating countless Canadian athletes to inspiring results over four decades of coaching.
“As young adults, we knew we had a great coach,” three-time Olympic gold medalist Marnie McBean said. “As mature adults and parents, we now realize how fortunate we were to have such a gifted mentor.”
Morrow was awarded the Canada Meritorious Service Medal by the Governor General in 1995. He is inducted into eight sport halls of fame, including London’s and Western’s, and was named coach of the year by the International Rowing Federation in 1999.
Lately, Morrow spearheaded the RCA’s coach mentorship program, establishing support for up-and-coming Canadian coaches with opportunities to improve their skills, knowledge and experience both on and off the water. Morrow is one of our Coach Education Program mentors.
Kayleigh Durm
Contact: kayleighdurm@gmail.com
Kayleigh is our dedicated Coxswain Coach. In addition to our full program, coxswains have the opportunity to delve deeply into coxing skills, rigging, the latest in coxing technology, technique, race strategy and more. Follow Kayleigh on “Ready All Row,” her very informative blog for coxswains.
Kayleigh joined the Columbia rowing programs in 2017 as the Director of Operations after spending three years as the coxswain coach and volunteer assistant with the heavyweight men's program at MIT.
She began coxing as a freshman at Marietta High School in Marietta, Ohio in 2002 before joining the Syracuse University women's program in 2006. In 2008, she transferred to Ohio State to complete her bachelor's degree in Sport Science and Human Performance. As a senior, Durm was offered an internship with the fifth-ranked Buckeyes football team, where she worked alongside the strength and conditioning staff during the 2010-2011 season that ended with a win at the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
In 2012, Durm saw an opportunity to capitalize on the lack of relevant resources pertaining to coxswain education and launched "Ready all, row...," a blog that acts as the go-to reference site for coxswains at the junior, collegiate, and pre-elite levels. She regularly answers questions and creates original content aimed at teaching coxswains everything they need to know but are not taught when they first start out in the sport. Purely through word of mouth, in the last five years the readership has grown to nearly 30,000 hits per month from over 80 countries.
In addition to her work on her own site, she's also a featured columnist in COXING Magazine.
Lindsay Shoop, OLY
Contact: ldshoop@gmail.com
Lindsay joins us for her fourth year as our resident nutritionist. Her role at camp is to teach athletes how to fuel appropriately for training, competition and recovery. In addition to preparing sample foods in our Camper Kitchen, she will teach campers how to customize their own snacks based on their preferences and/or allergies. Think Tour de France and the customized food sacks that are prepared for each cyclist to survive a 21 day competitive endurance event. Lindsay puts a rowing spin fueling for success.
Lindsay’s accolades are many. With a focus on performance optimization and longevity throughout sport and in life, Lindsay hosts clinics, webinars, and workshops for coaches, athletes, and teams of all types. She is a speaker for events at major universities and corporations, presents on various topics across the spectrum of her expertise as elite athlete, coach, exercise physiologist, and author. She was also a commentator for the rowing events at the Tokyo Olympics.
Lindsay’s philosophy fits perfectly with that of Northeast Rowing Center. In her recently published book, “Better Great Than Never,” Lindsay shows you how to seize your full potential by removing self-imposed limitations. She demonstrates how to embrace every step, good and bad, to find greatness. For Lindsay, life isn’t about winning. As long as you learn throughout your journey, you can never lose. She discovered rowing in college, where the sport became her outlet for transformation. In just one year she became an NCAA Division-I All-American; in four, she broke a world record and won her first World Championship. Within six years, Lindsay won Olympic gold.
Mike Irwin
Contact: mirwin@sju.edu
Mike Irwin joins us this year for the second time and will lead our coaching education program. He is in his sixth season as head men’s rowing coach at Saint Joseph’s University and possesses a wealth of collegiate coaching experience and involvement with the U.S. National Team.
Irwin was a boatman for the United States National Team at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, and was a member of the U.S. National Team staff for a total of five World Championships, dating back to 1999. “Mike and his proven track record, both internationally and collegiate, will be a great asset for the Hawk rowing program. I wish Mike all the best and congratulate Saint Joseph’s on hiring such an accomplished quality leader,” said Mike Teti, the current University of California coach and former U.S. National Team coach, who is a member of the SJU Athletics Hall of Fame.
Coach Irwin’s college coaching career has spanned more than 20 years, including seven seasons (2002 to 2009) at the University of Pennsylvania as the men’s lightweight head coach and director of boathouse operations. He also coached for seven years at Yale University, working first with the freshman lightweight crew and then the freshman heavyweight crew.
While at Penn, Irwin was named the 2005 EARC Lightweight Coach of the Year as he guided the Quakers a bronze medal at the IRA Championships. In 2002, he led Yale’s freshman heavyweight crew to a bronze medal in the Eastern Sprints, while in 1999, his freshman Lightweight crew at Yale captured two Eastern Sprints gold medals and went undefeated.
In addition to his duties at Penn, Irwin was very involved in Philadelphia rowing, having served as the head coach of both the Fairmount Rowing Association Master’s Program and the Vesper Boat Club Senior Rowing Program.
Irwin began his coaching career as the novice coach at his alma mater, Trinity College, after graduating in 1991. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., he earned a business essentials certificate in 2007 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Lindsay Dare Shoop
Contact: ldshoop@gmail.com
Lindsay joins us for her second year as our resident nutritionist. Her role at camp is to teach athletes how to fuel appropriately for training, competition and recovery. In addition to preparing sample foods in our Camper Kitchen, she will teach campers how to customize their own snacks based on their preferences and/or allergies. Think Tour de France and the customized food sacks that are prepared for each cyclist to survive a 21 day competitive endurance event. Lindsay puts a rowing spin fueling for success.
Lindsay’s accolades are many. With a focus on performance optimization and longevity throughout sport and in life, Lindsay hosts clinics, webinars, and workshops for coaches, athletes, and teams of all types. She is a speaker for events at major universities and corporations, presents on various topics across the spectrum of her expertise as elite athlete, coach, exercise physiologist, and author. She was also a commentator for the rowing events at the Tokyo Olympics.
Lindsay’s philosophy fits perfectly with that of Northeast Rowing Center. In her recently published book, “Better Great Than Never,” Lindsay shows you how to seize your full potential by removing self-imposed limitations. She demonstrates how to embrace every step, good and bad, to find greatness. For Lindsay, life isn’t about winning. As long as you learn throughout your journey, you can never lose. She discovered rowing in college, where the sport became her outlet for transformation. In just one year she became an NCAA Division-I All-American; in four, she broke a world record and won her first World Championship. Within six years, Lindsay won Olympic gold.
Kate Maloney
Contact: katherine.maloney@williams.edu
Returning to Northeast Rowing center for her 15th year, Kate Maloney is one of our veteran coaches.
Maloney begins her seventh year as the Women’s Varsity Coach at Williams College. She has gotten off to a great start winning the Division III NCAA Women’s Rowing Championship three of those years!
This follows a nine year stint as Yale’s Assistant Women’s Coach. While at Yale, Maloney’s 2009 Yale crew won the Eastern Sprints title, a first for Yale since 1987. Maloney was named the 2007 CRCA New England Assistant Coach of the Year. Maloney has coached rowing at every level from high school to college to masters. Her collegiate coaching career began at Northeastern University as the second assistant in 2002-03 working mostly with the third varsity before joining the Yale staff.
Kate began her rowing career at Mt. Baker and continued her racing at the University of Washington in Seattle where she started an impressive string of four undefeated regular seasons and four Pac-10 Championships.
In 1997, Maloney began a string of World Championship performances. She raced in the USA 4- finishing 4th, and in 1998 she was in the USA 8+ that won a silver medal. In 1999 again she won a silver medal with the USA 8+. Finally, Maloney finished her competitive racing career at the Sydney 2000 Olympics where she rowed in the USA 8+.
Holly Metcalf
Contact: hmetcalf@mit.edu
Holly Metcalf returns to the Northeast Rowing Center for her seventh season. She was recently honored by being inducted into the inaugural class of the Mt. Holyoke Sports Hall of Fame and was honored as the 2017 Patriot League Coach of the Year.
Holly Metcalf is in her eleventh season as head coach for the MIT openweight women. She has transformed the program from a struggling Division I squad into a team that is competitive within the Eastern Sprints, as well as its new conference, the Patriot League, where the Engineers’ varsity 8 squad has regularly found itself in the Grand Final. Additionally, in every year under Metcalf the team has earned Public Recognition Awards from the NCAA for its exceptional academic performance.
Metcalf was a six-time member of the U.S. National Team and won five World Championship and Olympic medals. At the 1984 Olympics she captured the Gold Medal in the women’s eight. She has coached extensively at the club, college, and national team levels. Metcalf also directed the Silver Medal winning crew at the 1990 World Championships.
More recently, Metcalf used rowing to enrich the lives of hundreds of women and girls through a variety of non-profit programs. In 1994, she founded the Row As One Institute, which provides masters women with top-level coaching. She extended this concept to inner-city girls in 1996 with her G-ROW program in Watertown, Massachusetts. Six years later Metcalf established WeCanRow, a wellness and rehabilitation organization for female cancer survivors, which recently evolved into WeCanRow National.
Over the years Metcalf has accrued numerous awards and honors, including:
2008 – USRowing Woman of the Year (with Olympic teammates)
2004 – RYKÄ First Women of Fitness Award
1999 – YWCA Outstanding Woman
1999 – New England Women’s Leadership Award
1999 – USRowing Woman of the Year (with Ernestine Bayer)
1999 – New England Women’s Sports Hall of Fame
1998 – New England Hero Award
1998 – Girl Scouts of America Leading Woman
1997 – Boston Magazine’s Top 50 Most Intriguing Women
1993 – Peter F. Drucker Award, Project Teamwork
1990 – World Championships Silver Medal (coach)
1987 – World Championships Silver Medal
1984 – USRowing Hall of Fame
1984 – Maine Hall of Fame
1984 – Olympic Gold Medal
1983 – World Championships Silver Medal
1982 – World Championships Silver Medal
1981 – World Championships Bronze Medal
Tessa Spillane
Contact: tspillan@wellesley.edu
Coach Tessa Spillane joins us for the first time this year.
The 2015-16 Division III National Coach of the Year, Head Crew Coach and PERA Associate Professor of the Practice Spillane has been at the helm of the Blue Crew program since the 2005-06 season.
In 2016, she guided the Blue to the first NCAA Division III National Championship in school and program history. She also saw the Blue win the overall points trophy at the New England Rowing Championships for the first time and was awarded with the National Invitational Rowing Championship Coach of the Year and 24th Annual Joy of Sculling Coaching Conference College Coach of the Year honors in 2016.
Spillane was presened with USRowing's Ernestine Bayer 'Woman of the Year' Award on December 3, 2016. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to women's rowing and/or to an outstanding woman in rowing. Spillane is the first NCAA Division III Women's Rowing Coach to earn the award since its inception in 1982.