Sarah Trowbridge - Head Coach - Rowing Coaches

Sarah Trowbridge

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
trowbridge@ou.edu

A 2012 U.S. Olympian, Trowbridge comes to Norman with an impressive resume as a coach and an athlete on the collegiate and international circuits. In addition to recently taking over the Sooners’ rowing team, garnering growth in team talent and success on the water, she is the current USA Head U23 Women’s Coach for both Sweep and Sculling and coach of the 2023 U23 World Champions and 2024 Silver Medalling Women’s U23 Eight.

Prior to coming to Oklahoma, Trowbridge spent two years as the women's varsity head coach for the Princeton National Rowing Association (PNRA). In Trowbridge's two years (2021 and '22) with the PNRA, the team won the USRowing Mid-Atlantic Conference Championship twice. Boats she oversaw finished third (2021 Women's Pair), fourth (2022 Women's Eight) and fifth (2021 Women's Straight Four) on the national stage.

Prior to her stint with the PNRA, Trowbridge led the San Diego women's rowing program for two seasons. She guided the Toreros to two top-three finishes (third in 2018, second in 2019) at the West Coast Conference Championships. Five rowers received All-WCC recognition and 11 earned WCC All-Academic honors. She left the West Coast to move with her family as her husband, Bryan Volpenhein, accepted a job as the head coach of the Penn men's rowing program.

Before becoming the Head Coach of the US Women’s U23 Team, she has coached individual United States women's boats to a sixth-place finish at the Olympics (2016) and to a silver and two bronze medals across five separate World Championships (2015-19). In addition, she coached U.S. Men's boats at the 2015 Senior and U23 World championships. Most recently, she led the Trinidad and Tobago women's singles program at the 2020 Olympics.

In her time as the high-performance head coach at the Vesper Boat Club in Philadelphia in 2017, Trowbridge oversaw five athletes who competed in the 2017 World Championships and garnered four silver medals and one bronze medal. The club also won its sixth consecutive USRowing Club National Championship, sweeping all three points titles.

From 2012-15, Trowbridge served as an assistant coach on the Yale women's rowing staff and helped guide the Bulldogs to a ninth-place finish at the 2015 NCAA Championships. The varsity four claimed second place that season – the highest event finish in the program's history – and the second varsity eight finished fourth.

Trowbridge's first collegiate coaching job was at Georgetown from 2006-08, where she coached the freshman lightweight boats and served as the lead recruiting coordinator.

As an athlete, Trowbridge has been a member of six U.S. senior national teams and represented the U.S. at the 2012 Olympics in London, where her boat finished sixth in the women's double sculls. In four consecutive years at the World Championships (2008-11) she won silver medals in the quadruple sculls (2009) and straight four (2008) and finished fifth in the quadruple sculls and ninth in the double sculls in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Her boat took home gold in the double and silver in the quad at the 2007 Pan-American Games.

Trowbridge grew up in Washington, D.C., and moved to Guilford, Conn., in high school. She began rowing as high school senior with the Blood Street Sculls and earned a spot on the University of Michigan rowing team. She helped the Wolverines win back-to-back Big Ten championships and earn two top-five finishes at the NCAA Championships (fourth in 2003 and third in 2004). She graduated from Michigan in 2006 with a degree in English.

Trowbridge's husband, Bryan, is also very accomplished in the rowing community. Beyond his role with Penn, he is a three-time Olympian and was the head coach of the U.S. National Team for six years. The pair have two children, Otto and Quincy.