Harvard Coach Breaking Mold

Quick question: how often do you see women roaming the NFL sidelines? How about behind the bench at an NHL or NBA game? The answer is never. People wonder when a woman will be elected president. But if men can’t trust a woman when a game is on the line, why would they trust one with the economy?

Now if only rowing were a more mainstream sport, perceptions might begin to change because Linda Muri has proven sports knowledge is not restricted to those with Y-chromosomes.

“To me, in rowing, there’s not a lot of difference [between coaching women and men],” she said. “It’s the same rules, the same distance. It’s really the same kind of technique. I think women are just as capable of coaching men.”

Muri, the head coach of the Harvard freshman lightweights, took her top freshman boat to its first ever Intercollegiate Rowing Championships victory in 2004. That same year, her boat took first place at Eastern Sprints, the first time a Crimson freshman lightweight eight had done so since 1985. Last year, the freshman eight took second to help the lightweight squad win the team title at Eastern Sprints.

The 1986 MIT graduate has been quite successful coaching on the international stage as well. She has coached the U.S. Women’s Junior National Team four and pair to the finals of the World Championship every year she coached them.

“She’s a fantastic coach,” freshman Alex Newell said. “I have a huge amount of respect for her both as a coach as an athlete. She obviously shows a lot of care and effort not only for the 1F but also for the 2F and the 3F. She does a really great job every year.”

And Muri completely belies the assumption that women coaches won’t be tough enough on athletes.

“She definitely pushes us really hard,” Newell said. “We get a lot of people in the beginning of the year, and a lot of them leave. But we’re competing to win, and everyone understands that.”

“I do expect a lot from my team,” Muri added. “I think if I expect high standards then they’re more likely to achieve it.”

And few know more about winning than Muri, who won three world championships in the pair in nine years on the national team.

Not bad for someone who didn’t start rowing in earnest until her sophomore year at MIT after starting her college career as a field hockey player.

“I started because I lived in a small house. My house tutor and a couple of the other people invited me to join them for the intramural race,” Muri explained. “The intramural race was a mixed race and they needed two non rowers. I was one of the non rowers because I was playing field hockey at the time.”

The race prompted Muri to explore the sport, but, at first, she was uninspired.

“I went to one of the practices, and I didn’t like it so I kept playing field hockey,” she recalled. “It took another year when I decided I would give it one more shot.”

It turned out to be a good decision. In addition to Muri’s world championships, she has also won 18 U.S. national championships, six Head of the Charles Regattas, and two CRASH-B Sprints hammers. In 1994, she was a semifinalist for the James E. Sullivan Award, which recognizes the top amateur athlete in the country.

The star athlete began coaching at the Middlesex School before moving to the collegiate level with a job at Simmons College. This season will mark her ninth coaching Harvard men, something that often prompts questions from reporters and others.

“You never hear a male who’s coaching women get asked the questions I get asked about coaching men,” she said. “It’s a double standard out there.”

And yet part of the reason Muri is asked so many questions is because she seems to be such an outlier. While men who coach women’s teams are fairly common, one hardly ever hears about the roles being reversed.

Yet there is hope that Muri’s success may change perceptions. Perhaps in the future, one will see more men’s sports teams following the lead of the Crimson lightweights and hiring women as coaches.

“I think all sports are suffering because we’re missing 50 percent of the population [in the coaching pool],” she said. “I’d like to see that change. And I think all sports would improve to see more women coaching.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.