University of Massachusets Athletics
Feature: Assistant Coach Megan McHugh
December 03, 2015 | Rowing
AMHERST, Mass. - Head coach Jim Dietz and the UMass rowing program welcomed alumna Megan McHugh to the coaching staff as an assistant coach during the 2015-16 season. UMass Athletics recently sat down with McHugh to get to know the newcomer and discuss the 2015 fall season, as well as the road ahead for spring 2016.
McHugh began her rowing career at UMass in 2007 without any background in the sport. She knew that rowing was competitive and that walk-ons did not need any experience to join the team.
“That was all I needed,” McHugh said. “When I walked into the first meeting and saw footage of the varsity boats training, I was awestruck.”
During her time wearing the Maroon and White, McHugh stated that rowing taught her how to work hard, push her limits and meet far-reaching goals much greater than she ever thought she could have achieved: “the student-athlete experience was truly one of the most rewarding of my life.” She rowed for UMass originally as a walk-on and eventually worked her way into the varsity lineup over the course of her four-year career.
And McHugh isn’t done.
She began coaching immediately after completing her collegiate career with UMass in 2011. McHugh started coaching masters rowers before transitioning to work with high school athletes and then ultimately college athletes. She began coaching at the collegiate level as a graduate assistant at UMass in 2013.
McHugh’s decision to go into coaching was an easy one. It is a way to stay connected to a sport that has become so much an extension of who she is and provides a means for her to give back, with the hopes of facilitating that same growth and fulfillment in others through rowing.
“Rowing is a sport with so many parallels to life and I have grown so much as an athlete and a person as a result of my student-athlete experience at UMass that coaching was a natural progression to that experience,” McHugh stated.
McHugh’s role as an assistant coach has her working primarily with the novice rowers, student-athletes who have been competitive in some way in high school, but are walking onto the rowing team and going through the try-out process at the beginning of the fall season. She explained that a handful of athletes enter the program with some high school rowing experience, while others, like herself when she first began rowing, have never set their sights on the sport before.
“We spend a lot of time initially taking things very slowly, looking to perfect each separate movement of the stroke,” McHugh explained. “You’ll just see things start to click and the student-athletes start to understand the stroke. They start to develop a feel for the stroke and they find their rhythm.”
This season’s novice rowers were put to the test late this fall in Hanover, New Hampshire, at the Green Monster Regatta, hosted by Dartmouth College. For many of the novices, the Green Monster was their first experience in an official race situation.
“The nerves were high going in as would be expected, but now that they have that racing experience, they have gained a little more confidence in that competitive atmosphere,” McHugh said. “I cannot wait to see what our group does through the winter training and coming into our spring racing season. We have strong women with a lot of potential!”
