Head Coach - Women's Lightweight Crew

Job Summary:

This position serves as the leader of the women’s lightweight crew team and embraces the vision of principled leadership, academic integration and competitive excellence. The Head Coach leads by developing a vision, setting team goals, and building a healthy and transformative culture. The Head Coach is responsible for all aspects of the program, including student-athlete development, planning and preparation for practices and contests, managing team staff, identifying and recruiting prospective student-athletes, budget, operational logistics, providing leadership to the respective Friends Group, and participating in appropriate University, community, alumni/ae and media relationships – all in compliance with University, Ivy League, IRA and NCAA rules and regulations.

The Head Coach uses athletics as the means to educate student-athletes. This position serves as a teacher and mentor in the holistic development of student-athletes to help build character and teach valuable life lessons including work ethic, discipline, resilience, accountability, adaptability, teamwork, humility and leadership – in support of the University and College missions. The Head Coach impacts personal development in addition to athletic development in a meaningful and lasting way.

This is a term position renewable at the discretion of the Athletics Director.

Job-Specific Responsibilities:

1. Athlete Team Management

• Plans and directs practices, in-game coaching; develops student-athlete knowledge and skills of the sport, and helps the team perform at competitive levels.
• Promotes culture of education through athletics. Ensures student-athletes receive meaningful direction and support from coaches by fostering spirit of continuous improvement and learning. Balances athletics within the academic context.
• Develops and oversees plan for student-athlete recruitment and retention that aligns with values of excellence and inclusion; responsible for strategy’s impact on team performance and reputation.
• Credibly and effectively leads and communicates with student athletes. Mentors student athletes in embracing leadership roles. Uses athletics to educate students about character development and accountability.
• Ensures academic integration of student athletes with the values of Harvard College.

2. Operational Complexity

• Develops and supervises the execution of team strategy, budget, logistics and operational direction; as appropriate, develops and executes national and international recruiting strategy.
• Ensures compliance with University, Ivy League, IRA, NCAA and other rules and regulations (including the University Conflicts of Interest and Commitment policy).
• Leads, directs, and reviews the work of assistant coaches; recruits and develops assistant coaches.
• Participates in professional development and sport governance/leadership activities.
• Identifies, explores and implements innovation opportunities/trends as appropriate.
• Identifies and resolves problems frequently of a complex nature, which may require intricate solutions that impact the team.
• Communicates effectively with athletics administrators.

3. Communications & Influence

• Effectively communicates with Harvard community, including students, Faculty and staff, alumni and donors.
• Generates interest and enthusiasm for the sport within and outside of the Harvard community.
• Responsible for maintaining and building high viewership and public interest of contests consistent with the applicable sport.
• Maintains and typically cultivates positive media interest consistent with the applicable sport.
• Responds to media inquiries as appropriate.
• As appropriate, requires the ability to influence positively public interest.

4. People Management

• Recruits assistant coaches and team operations staff.
• Leads, directs, and sets goals for assistant coaches and staff.
• Monitors and reviews the work of assistant coaches and staff, provides timely feedback, and takes prompt corrective action as necessary.
• Keeps abreast of Harvard policies, communications, and initiatives relating to employee relations, and keeps assistant coaches and staff informed as necessary.
• Promptly responds to complaints by or against assistant coaches and staff pursuant to University policies.

Additional Responsibilities:

• Demonstrate strong technical, tactical and strategic knowledge of the sport of rowing.
• Demonstrate ability to work collaboratively with women’s heavyweight head coach as well as men’s heavyweight and lightweight head coaches.
• Possess exceptional communications skills.
• Understand emerging issues in college athletics and rowing, including national trends and key issues.

Working Conditions:

• Evening and weekend work required.
• Frequent travel required.
• Job requires work in extreme environmental conditions, including extreme heat and cold, rain, and high levels of noise.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Requires at least 6 years of rowing coaching experience at the collegiate, national, club, or Olympic level.

Additional Qualifications and Skills:

• Requires complete mastery of sport-specific knowledge and relevant issues.
• Requires advanced management and leadership knowledge.
• Understands, embraces, and demonstrates the philosophy, principles and policies of college athletics.
• Basic proficiency in Excel, Word, e-mail and web-based applications

Certificates and Licenses:

• Valid driver's license needed.
• CPR and First Aid required.