William Curtis "Curt" Browder of Penn AC Rowing Association is the Schuylkill Navy Coach of the Year for 2005. Browder oversees more than 20 elite athletes training twice a day for national and international competition. He coached both a men's pair with coxswain and a pair without at the 2005 World Championships in Gifu, Japan.
Schuylkill Navy Commodore Clete Graham announced the selection of Browder, who will be recognized at the Navy's annual banquet on March 4, 2006, 7:00pm at Lloyd Hall, Boathouse Row, Philadelphia. Penn AC Rowing Association, a Club with a long tradition of training athletes for international competition, is one of 11 members of the Schuylkill Navy.
When told he had been selected, Browder said, "It is quite an honor to be named Schuylkill Navy Coach of the Year. I am a bit humbled by the award as I tend to believe that it is the athletes who should be recognized for the success of a program. That said, I am very proud and thankful to receive this award."
Curt Browder has been coaching rowers seeking positions on the US National Team for the past two and one-half years. Seven of the 21 athletes he coached this past summer made the US World Rowing Championships Team; Curt himself coached the men's pair without coxswain and the men's pair with coxswain at the 2005 World Championships in Gifu, Japan. In 2004, three of the nine athletes he coached made the US World Rowing Championships Team; Curt coached the men's pair with coxswain at the 2004 World Championships in Banyoles, Spain.
Browder has been a member of Penn AC Rowing Association for 12 years, joining the Club after a collegiate career at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and later at UNC Chapel Hill. Curt participated in international competition at the "elite" level from 1996 through 2003, representing the US at the 1996 and 2001 World Rowing Championships. He now competes at both the open and the masters' level in national competition, including first place finishes at the Head of the Schuylkill and the Head of the Charles in the Men's Masters 8+ in 2005.
Schuylkill Navy Commodore Clete Graham said of the selection, "It's unusual for a Schuylkill Navy Coach of the Year to be someone as young as Curt, who is only 37, but his long commitment to elite rowing on Boathouse Row and the success he's had a coach made him the obvious choice this year."
The Schuylkill Navy, founded in 1858 by nine boat clubs, is the oldest amateur athletics governing body in the United States. Today its membership includes eleven boat clubs that row on the Schuylkill River between the falls at the Art Museum and Flat Rock Dam in Manyunk. They are (by date of formation), Bachelors Barge Club (1853), University Barge Club (1854), Undine Barge Club (1856), Malta Boat Club (1860), Vesper Boat Club (1865), Crescent Boat Club (1867), Penn AC Rowing Association (1871), College Boat Club (1872), Fairmount Rowing Association (1877), Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club (1938) and Gillin Boat Club (2003).