Jesse Foglia Named Head Coach of USRowing Training Center – Princeton

USRowing is pleased to announce that Jesse Foglia has been named head coach of the USRowing Training Center – Princeton.

Foglia, who has spent numerous years coaching under 19, under 23, and senior national team athletes and boats for USRowing at the international level, joins the staff full-time after spending six seasons as the assistant heavyweight men's coach at Harvard University.

"I would like to thank Josy (Verdonkschot) and the rest of USRowing for this opportunity," Foglia said. "I have been tremendously lucky over the course of my career to have worked with some fantastic mentors and inspiring and talented athletes. Tom (Terhaar) and Laurel (Korholz) devoted over a decade to building the USRowing Training Center – Princeton into a force on the international stage, with numerous Olympic and world championship medalists. Building off that foundation, I look forward to partnering with the current athletes and facilitating their success as we move toward Paris and Los Angeles."

For the past two years, Foglia has served as the head coach for USRowing's under 23 men's squad, winning silver medals in the eight in 2021 and 2022, and a silver (2022) and bronze (2021) in the four with coxswain. Prior to that, he worked with the under 19 team in various capacities from 2009-2019, winning three silver medals in the men's eight and a bronze in the men's four with coxswain.

At the senior level, Foglia coached the men's four at the 2022 World Rowing Championships, the men's pair at the 2021 World Rowing Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, had five athletes named to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games' roster, and was slated to coach the men's eight and four at the 2021 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai before the event was cancelled due to Covid-19.

Foglia has served as the men's heavyweight assistant coach at Harvard since July 2016. Prior to that, he was an assistant lightweight coach at Columbia University for three years where he helped lead the program to its first IRA National Championship in 2016. He also served as a men's and women's assistant coach at Bates College from 2011-2013.

In his role with the USRowing Training Center, Foglia will be charged with running the center on a daily basis, while interacting with the rowing community to explain and communicate USRowing's High Performance philosophy. He will operate an athlete-oriented, high-performance environment for world-class, professional athletes; execute and monitor the yearly training and competition plan of the training center; provide technical supervision to both the sweep and sculling athletes at the training center; manage the integrated sport services and providers including sports medicine, biomechanics, nutrition, and sports physiology; communicate with collegiate and club coaches to ensure understanding of the pathway to the Olympic team; and provide input into high-level strategic planning to ensure long-term results for the organization.

"I am excited that Jesse is on board, and the athletes at the training center are looking forward for him to get started," said Josy Verdonkschot, USRowing Chief High Performance Officer. "As head coach of the training center, his main responsibility is to run the program in Princeton and prepare the athletes for next year's selection events. I am totally confident that he will do a great job."

In addition to the hiring of Foglia, USRowing will continue to work with Casey Galvanek and Tom Siddall as part of the high performance coaching staff. Based in Sarasota, Fla., Galvanek will focus on the Olympic program and the under 19 national team. Located in Boston, Siddall will focus on the Paralympic and Olympic programs.

Their responsibilities will be similar to Foglia's, with a focus on running an athlete-oriented, high-performance training environment for world-class, professional athletes; providing technical supervision for the sweep and sculling programs during camps and international competitions; managing the integrated sport services and service providers -- including sports medicine, biomechanics, nutrition, and sports physiology -- at their locations; communicating with collegiate and club coaches to ensure understanding of the pathway to the Olympic team; and providing input into high-level strategic planning to ensure long-term results for the organization.

Currently CEO and head coach at Sarasota Crew, Galvanek has served as USRowing's Under 19 National Team System head coach since November of 2020, overseeing the athletes and coaches in the program. In 2021, the U19 squad took home three gold medals from the World Rowing Junior Championships, winning the men's eight, women's eight, and women's four with coxswain. It also marked the first time in history that the U.S. swept the eights at the junior championships. In 2022, U.S. boats won three medals at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships including gold in the women's eight and women's four with coxswain. At the senior level, Galvanek coached the lightweight women's double sculls to a fifth-place finish and an American-record time at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and followed that up with a silver-medal performance at the 2022 World Rowing Championships. Galvanek has worked with the U19, U23, and senior national teams in various capacities since 2012 including coaching Clark Dean to back-to-back world titles in the junior men's single sculls.

Siddall has coached at Community Rowing, Inc., since 2018 and is the associate head coach for men's rowing at Tufts University. While living in the Greater Boston area, he also has been involved with Union Boat Club, CRI, and Cambridge Boat Club as a strength and conditioning coach and rowing coach at the junior, under 23, and masters levels. No stranger to USRowing, he has helped with ODP camps, ID camps, the Youth Regional Challenge, and recently completed his Level 3 Coaching Certification in the Spring of 2021. Under the guidance of Director of Para High Performance Ellen Minzner, Siddall has served as a Para rowing high performance coach and recruiting coordinator for USRowing since 2021, helping manage athlete training benchmarks, physiology training, lactate testing, strength and conditioning, and the annual training program. He also has helped manage the recruiting efforts for high school, development, U23, and national team candidate athletes.