Sixth Form captains Phoebe Opler ‘23, Lilly Schaeffer ‘23 and Anna Zoltowski ‘23 will lead the girls varsity crew on the water in the 2023 season. A large and dedicated group of sixth form rowers will provide additional leadership. Some begin to lay the foundation for the spring season competing in the fall, including at the Head of the Charles.  In the spring, with a strong squad seven boats deep, including five boats of returning rowers and an eager group of novices, the Big Red will continue to build the foundation for success with competitive racing in 2023!

 

Established in 1881, rowing has taken place at St. Paul’s School for more than 150 years, when the Halcyon and Shattuck Boat Clubs began annual competition.  This tradition still continues at the end of every season with the annual Anniversary Boat Club Races.  SPS is one of the founding members of the NEIRA – the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association.  On the girls side, St. Paul’s has won fourteen 1^st boat gold medals, the most of any other NEIRA crew in history, most recently in 2012, 2017, 2018, and 2019, including team trophies in 2017 and 2019, and a gold medal sweep in 2017.   Many SPS alumnae have gone on to row in Division I and III collegiate programs throughout the USA.  Across the boys and girls programs, over a dozen Olympians and over thirty junior and collegiate national team rowers started their love for the sport at SPS on Turkey Pond.  We are proud to continue that tradition, focusing on our core values to build an inclusive and competitive crew of strong, powerful women who represent these values on and off the water.  

 

Coach Michael Spencer, a medal-winning varsity heavyweight rower, recognized as the outstanding oarsman at The College of the Holy Cross, became head girls varsity coach in 2011 after coaching at Tabor Academy and for ten years as the head girls coach at The Taft School where he coached its first NEIRA championship crew.  For more than a decade, he has worked to build a collaborative coaching model, leading the SPS first boat to four gold medals at the NEIRA Championship (2012, 2017, 2018, 2019), multiple medals in the second and third boats, and three Team Trophy Champions in 2017, 2019, and 2022.  The first girls boat also finished as the second-fastest scholastic crew in the nation at the 2012 Youth Nationals; won the National Scholastic Rowing Association Regatta in 2014; the Reading Town Regatta in England in 2014, 2017, and 2019; and recorded strong finishes at the Women’s Henley Regatta in 2011, 2014, and 2017, capturing the Henley Peabody Cup in 2019 – for the fourth time in school history.

Spencer and co-coach, Deborah Vo, a decorated college rower who helped lead Brown University to two NCAA titles and arrived at SPS in 2016, model the very teamwork they espouse by alternating head coaching duties every other year for the girls crews.  Working together they continue the tradition of hard work, commitment, and success that have distinguished St. Paul’s girls crew for the past fifty years.

 

 

 

·         NEIRA 1^st Boat Champions: 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2012, 2017, 2018, 2019

·         NEIRA 2^nd Boat Champions: 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2017, 2022

·         NEIRA 3^rd Boat Champions: 1995, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2017, 2022

·         NEIRA Team Trophy: 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023

·         Youth Nationals: 2002 (silver medal)

·         National Scholastic Rowing Association (NSRA) Champions: 2014

·         Women’s Henley Champions: 1996, 1998, 2001, 2019

·         Alums rowing at Division I and Division III schools including: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, UPenn, Stanford, MIT, Bates, Middlebury, Williams, Wellesley.

·         International Competition including Henley Women’s Regatta, Henley Royal Regatta, Junior and U23 National Championships, and Olympic Competition.

·         Alumnae include more than a dozen junior and national team rowers and four Olympians.