Olympic oarsman Tyler Nase was named the next head coach for Penn women’s rowing this summer.
He previously served as the head coach of lightweight rowing at Cornell after working as an assistant coach with the Penn lightweight rowing program.
During college, Nase competed for Princeton’s lightweight rowing team before joining the United States Men’s National Team subsequently. He earned a silver medal at the 2013 World Rowing Cup before representing the United States at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Nase spoke with The Daily Pennsylvanian about his new role, his rowing career, and his return to Philadelphia.
The interview has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
DP: What are your initial thoughts about taking over as head coach for Penn women’s rowing?
Nase: I grew up in the area, so I rowed on the Schuylkill River in high school. After my national team career was over, I got my start coaching here at Penn as the assistant lightweight coach. So in all aspects, it really feels like a homecoming. It’s a place that I’m really familiar with.
In terms of the women’s rowing piece, as a coach, I’ve always kind of felt that women’s rowing is the college football equivalent in the United States. Just like the number of programs, the level of competition, the roster size. I really viewed women’s rowing as this next step in my coaching career. I think Penn is uniquely positioned in terms of its assets and locations to offer a world-class education and training environment. I think this program can really do something special.
DP: What made you want to return to Philadelphia when considering the job?
Nase: My family is around here. My friends are around here. So definitely coming back to Philadelphia, beyond just the incredible opportunity to work here, was something that was in the back of my mind. I’ll be honest. It’s an amazing city and Penn is an amazing place to work. So those were really what I missed a lot. I just think Penn attracts a certain type of person and it really feels like a good fit.
DP: Was there anything about Philadelphia or Penn that you particularly missed?
Nase: I mean, definitely the food. I’ll be honest. I even had picked up some Philadelphia salt. There’s some key staples about the area that you can only get in Philadelphia. It’s kind of wild. Like not many places have good soft pretzels.
DP: Are there any coaching ideas you are carrying over from your experiences with the Penn and Cornell lightweight programs to the Penn women’s program?
Nase: I definitely think my approach to coaching has kind of been the same. The recipe for success is really about whether you can create an environment that really helps athletes grow and develop over the course of four years. I think for this program I’m really gonna try and help our athletes. Can we create a system, an environment that is safe, supportive, but also pushes them? So that way they can really kind of get themselves to that NCAA championship caliber by the time they’re a junior or senior.
DP: What do you think are some of the differences between men’s and women’s rowing?
Nase: Everyone has been asking me that, and it’s been really cool for me having coached both, or starting to coach an all women’s team to really understand the nuances and the differences.
I do think just as human beings, everyone is different. Gender aside, different people have different needs and experiences and backgrounds. So it is really about getting to know people on an individual level. I have picked up on some conversations and I don’t know if it’s where different genders are at in their development process, but I’ve noticed that men’s approach in the sport is a little bit more like what’s immediate and what’s in front of them. The guys are really focused on the here and the now. Like, what are we doing today? Whereas, I think a lot of my conversations with our female athletes, they’re really looking at it from more of a wider lens. A little bit more of a bigger picture and how it all works together.
That’s definitely something that’s been interesting. And just in terms of recruiting, we’re talking about classes in 2027 and 2028, and I do think, young females at the end of their high school career are just a little bit more mature than young males at the end of their high school. I’ve been really impressed by their maturity level, their thought process, how they think about the sport, and this next part of their career.
DP: How does it feel to coach women’s rowing for the first time? Anything that you are particularly excited about?
Nase: I think it’ll be really cool to coach an entirely different league. Women’s rowing versus men’s rowing has a little bit more focus on the team aspect. So, for instance, like NCAAs, you don’t just win NCAAs by winning the varsity. You win NCAAs by having the total team points. So that is something that is still captured in men’s rowing, but I would say it’s not like the very top priority of a program. It’ll be really cool to try and help foster an environment where we’re really trying to prioritize the entire team’s performance because it all matters. If your varsity four gets the difference between fifth and sixth place in a final, that can have an impact for the entire team. So it’s a little bit more high stakes for the whole squad.
DP: Have you started training with the team yet, and have you got the chance to get to know them better?
Nase: We haven’t started practice, so our first official practice day will be the 27th, but I did have an individual meeting with every member of the team over the last two weeks. So I sat down and met with a roster of 55 athletes. It was pretty fun to get to know all of them. It was all virtual, but it was just a really good touch point to ask questions.
DP: You competed at every level from the Ivy League to the Olympics. What do you think are the differences between collegiate and Olympic rowing? And what did rowing at the Olympic level teach you that you now bring into coaching?
Nase: At the end of the day, it’s all the same. You’re doing the same sport. I think what is really cool about college rowing in particular is that you’re balancing it with academics, which is a challenge, but also, I think it really helps too. Being immersed in a class and studying material or learning new material was an opportunity for me to not worry about rowing. The very best athletes who do it really well, I think the two go hand in hand and you really get good at both. I felt that when I graduated from Princeton, I was mentally and physically like I can handle almost any problem you throw my way. So that’s something that I really want to impress upon our athletes. It’s not easy to do this at a really high level, and also have this huge academic venture as well.
I think then the piece for the Olympics was just so much more specialized. If I was spending, let’s say, 40% of my day focusing on rowing, and then the other, you know, 60% was towards school and taking care of myself. The Olympic process was probably 70% of my day spent on rowing sort of nonstop.
DP: As you lead the program, where do you see the biggest opportunities for improvement?
Nase: With me coming in the door, it’s really an opportunity to start something new.
My approach is really about trying to understand what worked well last year and what maybe didn’t work so well last year. So that way we can come up with a sense of hey this is the new direction we want to go, but also honoring what has historically worked well for the squad in the past. There have been periods of success, as recent as 2024. So I do think there’s a lot of good foundation here, and it’s really a matter of getting the people working together and working in the right way.
