Seconds into the 2023 Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship, Penn lightweight rowing’s Varsity Eight found itself in a troubling scenario: They had “caught a crab.”
A rower’s oar accidentally got pulled underwater mid-stroke, wrenching everything out of control and halting the crew’s progress. This was now-senior lightweight rower Ian Holly’s first time competing on the biggest stage of collegiate rowing — it was surely a memorable freshman year experience.
“We knew going into the race that Princeton and Harvard were really good, and we wanted to push them,” Holly said. “The boat immediately slowed down off the start, which was pretty rattling because we found ourselves in last place within the first 100 meters of the race. I’m sitting there thinking to myself, ‘This can’t be happening in my first-ever national race.’ I was freaking out.”
After a quick reset, the Penn crew began making up ground on everyone ahead of them. The Quakers rowed from last to third place, gaining ground on Navy.
“Our coxswain was shouting at us, saying, ‘Guys, you have to trust me, know Navy is going to slow within the next like 200 meters, keep pushing,’” Holly said. “We had to start sprinting full speed with 800 meters left to go. I kind of just closed my eyes and thought, whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”
Penn’s Varsity Eight crew finished marginally between Harvard and Navy on the back of an excellent late storm to the finish line. For Holly, this race taught him important lessons early in his collegiate career that he carries with him to this day.
“It showed me how quickly you can turn a race around,” Holly said. “When you’re down, literally and physically in a rowing race, or emotionally in general, you need to stay within yourself, stay true to yourself, and start working to turn your situation around to make the most of it.”
Originally from Darien, Conn., a commuter suburb outside of New York, Holly was initially exposed to rowing in middle school by family friends. From middle school through his senior year of high school, Holly rowed with the private Maritime Rowing Club, captaining his crew in the 2021-22 season. Holly’s senior year of high school was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading him to take a unique approach to collegiate recruiting since he wasn’t able to have official visits.
“I actually wasn’t recruited after leaving high school,” he said. “So, I graduated high school without knowing where I wanted to go to college, but I had told all these coaches that I was going to take a gap year and train.”
Shortly after graduating high school, Holly met a Penn rowing coach at the USRowing Youth National Championships. His third-place finish in a race at that stage helped him secure an offer to row for Penn by the end of the summer.
Upon arriving in University City in fall 2022, Holly would join coach Colin Farrell’s team while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. As a freshman, Holly had to fight for a spot in the Red and Blue’s top boat.
“When I got here as a freshman, the team was not in as great a spot as it is now,” Holly said. “I was not that good compared to the other guys on my team, which is a pretty common experience for most new guys. You go from being the best guy in your high school club to coming into a collegiate program where you’re kind of the small fish again.”
In the summer of his junior year at Penn, Holly rowed the lightweight double sculls for USRowing at the World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Poznan, Poland. Holly credits his training sessions in Conshohocken, Pa., a city west of Philadelphia, for helping him refine his sculling. Sculling — a technique where each rower uses two oars, one in each hand, to propel the boat — is not practiced by the Penn team.
“In Poland, I learned that there’s a whole other world-class level of elite rowing required on that stage,” Holly said. “The takeaway from competing in Poland was that there’s a whole other world-class level of elite rowing required on that stage. It was cool to meet the other national team members from all the different schools and athletes from other nations.”
During his time at Penn, the lightweight rowing program has improved significantly. Over the past three years, Penn has been consistently competing for a top-3 spot at the IRA National Championship. Harvard has traditionally dominated the lightweight division, but the Quakers continue to push their rivals each year.
“Starting freshman year, I trained at The Conshohocken Rowing Center on the weekends,” Holly said. He followed some seniors on the team to the center, saying, “I started tagging along because it was a goal of mine to make it on the national team.”
Outside the boat, Holly pushes himself to explore his passion for robotics. As a student worker in the SEAS AddLab, he’s accessed experimental and high-performance 3D printers, processed machine parts, and assisted as a consultant to outside groups. Holly is actively involved in the Wharton Undergraduate Aerospace Club, where he has engaged in discussions with senior leaders from top firms across commercial aviation, defense, and space sectors. Last year, he completed an internship at Albacore, a Pennovation Center startup specializing in long-range drone submarines.
Actively pursuing an accelerated master’s degree in robotics, Holly will remain at Penn for a fifth year after earning his B.S. in May.
After a few cup regattas across the last two weeks of April, the Red and Blue will gear up for the EARC Eastern Sprints in mid-May and, ultimately, national championships.
Due to the Ivy League’s 4-in-4 eligibility policies, Holly’s rowing eligibility is set to expire at the conclusion of the 2026 season. He’s looking forward to making more memories with the Varsity Eight squad as EARC Sprints and IRA Nationals loom around the corner.
During his time at Penn, Holly absorbed all he could from those who had gone before him.
“I was really inspired by some of the senior leaders on the team — guys like Simon Dubiel and Charlie Bourget,” he said. “I learned that there were levels to this and that you can continually challenge yourself and race against better teammates and against better opponents to become a more complete and better rower.”
And even as he did improve, hitting the standard qualifying time for nationals and eventually racing in Poland, he always found new ways to learn and hopes to leave an example for others.
“It would be great if all our boats show up to Sprints and the IRAs and get gold in everything,” Holly said. “But one thing my coach always used to say in high school was that winning is a cheap emotion. I want to leave Penn and my team with motivation to continue the legacy of a strong culture; I want to leave the team in a better place than I found it.”
