Alumna Makes Splash Coaching Men's Crew

In 1972, the passage of Title IX helped grant women’s collegiate athletics the same rights and resources as men’s athletics. But during that same period, according to Drexel University, there has been a drastic reduction in the number of women who coach varsity athletics at the collegiate level.

An exception to this trend: Linda Muri ’85, now in her eleventh year as an assistant coach of men’s lightweight crew at Harvard. In 2010, Muri led Harvard to a 10-0 lightweight freshman dual record and an EARC silver medal.

An aeronautical and astronautical engineering major at MIT, Muri was recently spotlighted in the "The Real Women of Coaching" video series, part of the Women in Coaching blog run by Drexel’s Sports Management program. She discussed the growing anomaly of a woman coaching an elite men’s varsity team and the difficulties of being a female in a virtually all-male world.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-zHlm1xXZE&w=500&h=281]

A three-time world champion, Muri is an 18-time U.S. national champion, a nine-time U.S. national team member, and five-time Head of the Charles champion. As a coach, she helped guide three United States boats to gold medals at the 2010 World Rowing Under 23 Championships.

Muri told Women in Coaching:

"Every year, the freshmen coming in know who I am and what I’ve done…someone without those same kinds of credentials could have a harder time.

You can’t be intimidated. What’s helped me a lot is to put on my thick skin. You know you’re going to get pushed and prodded and stepped on. Just do it. Stand up, step up, and go for it."

In 2009, MIT and Radcliffe renamed their annual series the "Muri Cup," with the Muri Cup awarded to the victorious team following the race. She was also featured in a February 21, 2012 article of the Wall Street Journal, in which she gives tips to burgeoning rowers.