USRowing Announces 12 New Level 3 High Performance Coach Graduates

USRowing is excited to announce the 12 coaches who have completed the most recent Level 3 High Performance Coach Certification Course.  

Over the course of several months and over 100 hours of training, these coaches completed 11 elite coaching modules designed to advance their skills in fields such as biomechanics, advanced rigging, long-term athlete development, and rowing philosophy, to name a few. 

Please join us in congratulating the latest additions to the Level 3 coaching ranks! 

Selma Abbasiazad 

Selma is an Olympian and coached in many roles with the Iranian Rowing Federation between 2015 and 2022, including as Junior National Team Head Coach before being promoted to the Senior National Women’s Team Head Coach. During her tenure, Iranian women raced at the Youth Olympics, won medals at the Asian Championships, and finished in Olympic qualification positions. She set the program's strategic direction, oversaw holistic management, managed assistant coaches, and hands-on coaching.  

Selma moved to the United States in 2022 and has been Head Coach of Pensacola Rowing Club, Fla. She is currently coaching at Sarasota Crew FL, where she has coached varsity crews to national championships. 

Selma’s coaching expertise is in both sculling and crew with a strong academic foundation. She has a bachelor's in biomechanics and, as a graduate of USRowing’s Level 3, Selma will continue to develop athletes as people and assist them in realizing their potential on and off the water, whether they be a novice, high school, varsity, performance, or masters rowers. 

Estel Boix Noguer 

Estel (he/they) started rowing at the age of 12 in his hometown of Banyoles, Spain. He immediately fell in love with the sport and, at the age of 15, became a member of the Spanish national team. In 2017, they started their journey as a student-athlete for Sacramento State, where they rowed for four years. He has been coaching for more than five years now, From juniors to college athletes, his main objective is to share the passion of rowing with their athletes. Even though he is not currently rowing, he still cares and loves the sport like day one. He is currently coaching at River City Rowing Club in West Sacramento, and he hopes to become an NCAA coach someday. 

Ellen Braun 

Ellen Braun was a volleyball player for four years at University of Massachusetts - Amherst and had the good luck to discover rowing in her senior year. She rowed two-seat in the UMass W8+ that finished second in the 1982 Dad Vail Regatta despite her boat-stopping crab in the semis almost taking the boat out of contention. After college, Ellen competed in road and track cycling and was a four-year member of the U.S. National Cycling Team.  

With a technical degree and eventually an MBA, Ellen worked for Ernst & Young, focused on technology consulting in the U.S. and overseas, then a California internet startup, and finally CapitalOne, where she had a range of roles in IT and post-merger integration teams. Ellen rediscovered rowing in 2017 and subsequently joined the coaching staff of a local high school team focused on sculling, Western Albemarle High School, where she focuses on technical skill development. WAHS rowers have earned spots on the podium in the Stotesbury Cup, SRAAs, Head of the Schuylkill, and youth nationals; WAHS alumni have done admirable work transitioning to sweep rowing at D1 and D3 schools. Ellen also volunteers with the Rivanna Rowing Club’s summer training and learn-to-row coaching team.  

Ellen competes occasionally as a masters rower, most recently at HOCR in a double, teamed up with a cross-town rival Albemarle High School’s head coach, and at masters nationals in the single sculls. 

Bailey Chick 

Bailey started coaching in 2018 at Wilmington Youth Rowing Association where a group of 10 wild middle school boys helped her find a new way to love a sport. She is now the Head Coach of North Allegheny Rowing Association in Pittsburgh PA and First Assistant Coach for Penn AC Gold.  

Some highlights from her time at NA have included podium finishes at SRAAs, Midwest Scholastic Rowing Championships, Stotesbury Cup, Head of the Hooch, Head of The Ohio, and the Head of the Schuylkill. While at Penn AC, she has been a part of a coaching staff that has elevated team performance at summer nationals each year, including winning the Colgan Cup in 2024 and the points cup at Independence Day Regatta in 2023 and 2024.  

Bailey began rowing as a walk-on novice at Temple University in 2006. She rowed for Vesper Boat Club’s U23 program and several master's programs along Boathouse Row. She serves on the Midwest Scholastic Rowing Association Board as the Chair of Coaching Development and Social Media. 

Dave Gleeson 

Dave is a dedicated sculling coach with a rare blend of high-level sculling and coaching experience. A product of an atypical sculling trajectory via numerous clubs, he has sculled on four U.S. national teams (men's quadruple sculls and men's double sculls), was a sculling spare at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, medaled at Lucerne World Cup and Pan-American Games, and held two course records at the Henley Royal Regatta in the double sculls.   

Dave’s coaching draws from the diverse array of coaches he had the fortune to train under: Steve Gladstone, Ken Dreyfuss, Kris Korzenowski, Mike Spracklen, and Igor Grinko, to name a few. He has developed a unique approach to sculling technique and training, from beginning junior scullers through to Olympians.  

Dave has been sought out by Olympic and national team sculling athletes. He coached the lightweight men's single sculls to sixth place at the 1997 World Championships, women's double sculls to fourth place at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, trained a member of the 2012 men’s quadruple sculls at the London Olympics, and coached the 2016 Olympic trials-winning men's quadruple sculls (with the late Larry Gluckman) that narrowly missed qualification for the Rio Olympics. 

Being a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, he believes in egoless coaching and the need for athlete self-empowerment. Several athletes Dave worked with coach at the collegiate, national, and Olympic level. 

Steve Hall 

Coach Hall is the current Head Men’s Coach for Bishop Ireton High School. His rowing and coaching spans more than 50 years, with 28 years of active school and club experience. Steve learned to row at Edgewater High School in Orlando. He competed for four years at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., including the Henley Royal Regatta. He coached the first women’s crew at Rollins in 1976 and was inducted into the Rollins Sports Hall of fame in 2012. 

As a Masters competitor he has competed with notable rowing highlights: 

• Henley Masters Regatta, 2003 (2nd place) Men’s D8 category with Rollins Alumni 
• Head of the Charles, 2006 Men’s Master 8’s 10th place with Rollins Alumni 
• Head of the Hooch, 2007 Men’s Master 8’s 1st place with Rollins Alumni 
• USRowing Masters Nationals, 2013 Men’s F8 2nd place with Rollins Alumni 
• World Rowing Masters Championships, 2018 G8’s 3rd place with Rollins Alumni 

Coach Hall coached masters rowers at Annapolis Rowing Club (ARC) from 2013 to 2020. After the COVID-19 Pandemic, he became Head Men’s Coach for Annapolis Junior Rowing (AJR) for two years and coached the boy’s fours to USRowing’s Youth National Championships twice. He is now in his third year coaching the Bishop Ireton High School rowers as Head Coach and has brought his boats to the SRAA’s the past two years. 

Utilizing education attained through his USRowing Level 3 High Performance Coaching Certification, Hall will continue his mission to coach Junior rowers towards achieving their highest skill level, collegiate potential, and love for the sport of rowing.  

Kevin Leslie 

Kevin Leslie is the head coach and founder of At The Thousand (ATT), a rowing club and online educational rowing platform centered around preparing high school athletes for long term success as aspiring college rowers. Based in Bryn Mawr, Pa., the former college rowing coach and certified trainer prioritizes training on the Concept 2 Erg and resistance/strength training. 

Before starting ATT, Kevin spent six years as the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the Saint Joseph’s University men’s rowing program. Prior to coaching, he also rowed Division I for Saint Joseph’s, joining the team as a novice walk-on with no previous rowing experience. 

Kevin lives outside Philadelphia, and you will probably bump into him at any regatta hosted on the Schuylkill River! 

Brian Marçais 

Brian Marçais began rowing as a walk-on at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester N.Y. in 1996, where he became the men’s top varsity coxswain.  

While still studying at RIT, he began coaching juniors at the newly formed Brighton Rowing Club. He continued coaching junior’s and master’s teams on both sides of the country, working with the Rochester Rowing Club (N.Y.), Boulder Community Rowing (Colo.), East Bay Rowing Club (Calif.), and Oakland Tech HS (Calif.), before settling into his current role as the Head of U15 Programs at Oakland Strokes in Oakland California.  

He also coached at the USRowing Para Rowing Development Camp this summer, bringing the campers to compete at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta. 

Brian still races several times a year, and, outside of college, has competed as a coxswain with many clubs, including Riverside Boat Club, East Bay Rowing Club, Kent Mitchell Rowing Club, and, most recently, Lake Merritt Rowing Club.  

Mitch McManus 

Mitch McManus successfully led crews of a different kind before moving to coaching full time. As an internationally awarded Film and Television Director, he has written, produced, and directed commercials for everything from hamburgers to Hollywood blockbusters.  

Mitch was first introduced to rowing at the Shore School in Sydney, Australia, where he started coxing as a 12-year-old. Steering the Shore 1st VIII in his senior year, he then competed for Sydney Rowing Club while at film school. Fast forward two decades and stints living and working in both Asia and the U.S., Mitch’s passion for rowing was reignited in 2013 when his daughter Caitlin discovered rowing at Queenwood in Sydney. She was then selected on the Girls Varsity Team at Community Rowing, Inc. (CRI) when the family moved to Boston.  

Unable to resist the draw any longer, Mitch retired from film and television and dove headfirst into coaching, kicking off with a year of full-time study at the Institute of Rowing Leadership (IRL) in Boston. 

Mitch coached at CRI and Bromfield Acton-Boxborough, then three days after graduating from the IRL in 2019, he was appointed to the position of Rowing Director and Head Coach at Greater Lawrence Rowing (GLR). He enjoyed great success for two years before being selected as Rowing Director and Head Coach at Shrewsbury High Schoolm where he’s about to launch into his sixth season.  

While success at regattas is great fun, Mitch believes that developing camaraderie, leadership, and life skills in the athletes he coaches is just as important as teaching fitness and technical ability. “It’s only half about the rowing.” 

Maggie Rabenberg 

Maggie Rabenberg has been a coach since 2016, when she used her senior year in college to begin her career coaching junior women at Roland Park Country School in Baltimore, Md. Since then, she has coached all classes of athletes: juniors and masters at Community Rowing, Inc, Division III women at North Park University, breast cancer survivors at Recovery on Water, and NCAA Division I men and women at La Salle University.  

She has currently found her footing at her alma mater, coaching Division I men and women at Loyola University Maryland while also spending her summers working with Sparks Rowing Camps. Utilizing education attained through her USRowing Level 3 High Performance Coach Certification, Rabenberg hopes to continue to grow in her roles at both programs and bring a higher level of knowledge to wherever rowing will take her next. 

Rabenberg began rowing at Saint Louis Rowing Club during high school, before continuing her rowing career as a Division I student-athlete at Loyola University Maryland. She competed in multiple boat classes, including competing at the 2016 Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Regatta in the Women’s Lightweight 2x. While she is no longer a competitive rower, she is an avid traveler who is always trying to use what little downtime she has as a coach to see new parts of the world. 

Pam Roberts 

Pamela Roberts started rowing in 1977 and was the on the first girls crew at her high school. Other than a stint playing rugby, rowing has been her sport of choice. She has coached junior programs as her job allowed, starting in 1988 and continuing through today. She has been in board and leadership positions at Occoquan Boat Club and Potomac Boat Club, serving as President of the latter in 2014-2015. 

Coach Roberts loves coaching and has a particular interest in juniors, novice, and newer rowers, where there is the biggest opportunity to have an impact on the athlete and instill a love for the sport. She achieved USRowing’s Level 2 Certification in 2020 and decided to make the leap to Level 3 to have all the knowledge and tools to really, truly make a difference. She looks forward to putting this knowledge to work and continuing to impact the sport that has given her so much!  

Bill Zack 

Bill Zack graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, holds an MBA degree from the Yale School of Management, and retired from the Coast Guard with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He received many military awards and honors and is a member of the Coast Guard Academy Athletic Hall of Fame. He has held head coaching positions at San Diego State, University of Portland, and Sacramento State, and assistant coaching positions at UCLA and the Coast Guard Academy. Bill has coached at the Senior and U19 World Championships and been a team leader for the Olympic Games, Pan American Games, and Senior and U19 World Championships.  

He is a past president of the CRCA and WIRA. Bill is highly active in the USRowing learning and development program. Residing in San Diego, Bill offers his expertise to rowing programs throughout the country on a pro bono basis. 

To learn more about USRowing’s Level 3 High Performance Coach Certification click HERE.