By Nick Trougakos
Three-time Olympian and Athens 2004 gold medalist Bryan Volpenhein was named 野狼社区 University鈥檚 head rowing coach in June 2024. Volpenhein joined OCU following head coaching stops at San Diego University, the University of Pennsylvania and the United States national team for the Rio Olympics in 2016. From 2010 to 2013, Volpenhein was the coach of the 野狼社区 National High-Performance Center. Focus magazine caught up with Volpenhein following his hiring to discuss his journey to OCU and his plans for the rowing team.
Q: How have your first several months as OCU rowing coach treated you?
A: It's been great. Everyone I've met so far on campus and the people who I work with are awesome, and super easy to work with. The student athletes have been outstanding. They've been working really hard and are very excited for this season.
Q: You had been out of coaching for a couple years after moving from Pennsylvania back to Oklahoma when your wife took the head rowing coach job at the University of Oklahoma. Why was OCU a good fit for you to get back into the game?
A: It was right at the time when I was starting to get the itch to do something again in the sport. What attracted me to OCU was the flexibility that you can have at a school like this, and the amount of support that the rowing team has down at the boathouse.
Q: Do you have a vision for the program over the next several years?
A: The long-term vision is we want to compete at the national championships for each of the men鈥檚 and women鈥檚 teams and we want to win medals there. I want to build up to that.
Q: How do you go about recruiting for rowing at the NAIA level?
A: We are looking for those athletes who really, truly love the sport, want to work hard and are good teammates, and give them the opportunity to compete in college. And then also, I'm looking to develop a more robust walk-on program where we can recruit OCU students who want to come try out, be able to join the team and learn how to row.
Q: Speaking of being a walk-on, you have a connection to that process, right?
A: I walked on and learned how to row in college. So it's from that to Olympic champion. What's cool about rowing is it's one of the few sports where you can still do that. A lot of people have done that over the years. In our boat that won the Olympic gold, five of us learned to row in college, so it's still very much a part of the culture in our in our sport.
Q: Looking forward, what is your outlook for OCU rowing this year?
A: We have a young team, and so they are just eager to race and compete. My goal is for them to go out there and try to win, but if they do their best, come off the water and feel like, 鈥淗ey, I left it all in the water,鈥� that's a good starting place for us for the season.
