The Coaches

TC Crew is lucky to have the wealth of experience and talents represented by our coaching staff. Many are leaders in the scholastic rowing world and as a result are well known at the college and masters levels. Many of our coaches are alumni of TC Williams, George Washington High School (pre-1965) and Francis C. Hammond (also pre-1965) crews. The coaches are a dedicated group who spend tremendous amounts of their time with the rowers at the Boathouse, and it shows in the success of our program.

Girls Coaches

Jon Schildknecht
Jon was named TC head girls coach in July 2008.  He has coached TC girls since 1997, coaching novices, freshmen, and juniors. His freshman 8s have medaled twice at Stotesbury, including gold there and at the SRAAs in 2000.  While rowing for Coach Mike Penn at TC Williams, Jon won gold at Stotesbury and silver at the SRAA Nationals in the junior 8. 

Jon rowed and coached at Virginia Tech during his undergraduate years, serving as Women’s Head Coach in 1995.  Jon earned his Masters in Education at Virginia Tech and teaches at Yorktown High School in Arlington.  He holds a Level II USRowing Coaching certificate.

E-mail Jon Schildknecht

Steve Weir 
Steve is retiring at the end of the 2008 season, after 33 years of coaching at TC Williams, 15 as girls head coach.  Steve began rowing lightweight 8 at F.C. Hammond High School in 1968 under Head Coach Dee Campbell.  He rowed bow in the lightweight eight that won the 1967 Northern Virginia Championships (The Brothers Cup) and coxed the 1968 Championship junior four at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta. Steve rowed for the Potomac Boat Club junior team in 1969 under Mike Gash when he won the lightweight single dash at the Presidents Cup regatta.

Steve began coaching at TC Williams in 1975, Dee Campbell’s first year as head coach for the TC Girls' Crew Team.  He started coaching the lightweight women’s team in 1978, and became the head women’s coach for TC Williams in 1994.

His crews have won 12 Stotesbury Cup and SRAA Championships and five Canadian Secondary School Rowing Association Championships. The trophy for the Women’s Lightweight Eight at Stotesbury Cup Regatta is named “The Steven T. Weir Cup”.

Steve considers his most influential coaches to be Dee Campbell for his tireless dedication to the sport of rowing and his teams, Mike Gash for his true understanding of the rowing stroke and John Ferris, for teaching the understanding of rigging.

A 1975 graduate of Virginia Tech, Steve is an architect in Alexandria.  

E-mail Steve Weir

Lisa Coughlin
This spring will be Lisa's fifth year with TC Williams Crew.  She started coaching in 2004 with the novice boys and switched to coaching novice girls in the spring of 2005.  Lisa is an Earth Science teacher at TC, and rowed for four years at the College of William and Mary.

E-mail Lisa Coughlin

Bess Dopkeen
Bess began rowing at the beginning of her freshman year of high school and went on to become varsity co-captain of her crew team at Kenwood Academy, a public school in Chicago. She was coxswain of the Tufts University varsity lightweight women's boat during her freshman year, and cox for the varsity open weight her second. She spent two seasons coxing for Community Rowing, a competitive adult team on the Charles River in Boston, MA.

Bess moved to Washington, DC on a fellowship after graduating from Tufts in 2004 and immediately joined Alexandria Community Rowing's competitive women's team.  She has been coxing for them ever since.  Bess is now coming full circle as the freshman novice coach for TC Williams girls crew. In her free time she works as an acquisitions analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.

E-mail Bess Dopkeen

In addition to coaching TC Williams crew, Cathy has been the coach of the ODBC girls crew since 2004, and coaches and coxes with Alexandria Community Rowing.  She's a yoga instructor and EMT, and is back in school, in a post-grad program at Georgetown.

Cathy will be taking on short-term special coaching assignments with the TC girls crew this spring.

E-mail Cathy Hott

began rowing at TC Williams in 1994.  She rowed on the varsity 8 coached by Dee Campbell from 1996-1998, a boat that brought a lot of trophies back to the Boathouse. Her high school accomplishments included gold and silver medals at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, SRAA Nationals and Canadian Scholastic Nationals, and a second place at the Women's Henley Regatta in England.  Lexye rowed her freshmen year at UVA in 1998-1999 placing second in the freshmen 8 event at the Women's Eastern Sprints regatta.  

Lexye began coaching novices for the program in 1996 and continues to coach novices in summer and fall programs.  She began coaching for TC in 2002, with the girls freshmen and third 8s.  Lexye currently rows with the Alexandria Community Rowing Club women's team at local and national regattas.

E-mail Lexye

Boys Coaches

Erin Donelson
Novice coach Erin Donelson is back for her second year coaching TC Crew.  She recently completed graduate school at The George Washington University. During her undergraduate years, she rowed for Duquesne University.

Erin is no stranger to the Alexandria school system because she teaches 1st grade at Cora Kelly. She is a huge sports enthusiast and can be spotted running occasional 5k races around the area.

E-mail Erin Donelson

Peter Hearding
Peter is entering his seventh year as a coach for TC boys crew, and his third working with the JV boats. In 2005, he helped guide the freshman 8 to the Virginia State Championship. Peter rowed for TCW in the senior 8 and was a member of the Washington Post All-Met team in 1997. He went on to Syracuse University to row as a freshman. After graduating Pete returned to Alexandria and lost no time getting back into crew.

Peter has also coached the boys side of the Old Dominion Boat Club program during the fall seasons of 2006 and 2007. During the 2007 season, ODBC boys won all three of the local races they entered – Head of the Potomac, Occoquan Chase and the Head of the Occoquan, and placed 10th out of 55 entries at the Head of the Charles. Peter also coaches the Alexandria Community Rowing Men’s Sweep program. 

Peter is married to a fellow TC Crew alum, Lexye (Street) Hearding, works for Homeland Security, adopted a black lab named Toby, isn’t any good at home repair, enjoys reading the Sunday Post, runs a lot but is not particularly fast, incurs icy stares from his darling wife when he acts like a lunatic while watching Redskins football games and Syracuse basketball games, worries about greenhouse gas emissions, thinks much of the decline of western civilization can be attributed to Dr. Phil, believes William Faulkner to be the most overrated American writer and Walt Whitman the most underappreciated, and usually finds it difficult to say anything intelligent about himself.

E-mail Peter Hearding

Matt Holland
The 2008 boys novice coach is a veteran of the Potomac, in Alexandria and Washington, DC.  Matt Holland rowed at TC Williams for Coach Phil Yeich, and for Coach Sarah Washington on the 1994 freshman 8.  That boat was undefeated in the regular season and silver medalist at Stotes, and Matt was the freshman MVP that year. He went on the to the junior 8 at TC, then rowed for the Junior National Team out of Thompson Boat Center in the 8 and quad, medaling in each at the MidAtlantic Regionals.

Matt's also an avid outdoorsman, who enjoys hiking, camping, biking (he biked 4217 miles across the US, from coast to coast) and traveling around the world. He's coached in the Alexandria Rec Department sports camps, ACB Summer Crew, ACB Fall Crew, and worked with the Kieve Leadership School in Maine. There he ran the high ropes course, rappelling wall, climbing wall and aquatic activities for 6th through 8th graders, so he's more than ready for our novice boys. This summer Matt plans to bike across the country again, this time traveling 4300 miles from Seattle to Maine. 

E-mail Matt Holland

Patrick Marquardt
Patrick is a native to Alexandria and fellow TC Titan. In 1998, he rowed his way to a bronze metal at Stotes under Freshman 8 Coach Jaime Rubini. In 2000, Patrick was a member of the TC Junior 8 ("we rowed like…") for Coach Ed Cannon, that won the Canadian National Gold Medal.

After graduating in 2001, Patrick went on to James Madison University where he majored in math and economics. As an active member of the JMU econ department his senior year, he taught elementary macroeconomics to entering students. He worked as an analyst for Systems Planning and Analysis before deciding to return to the world of academia. In 2006, he began the pursuit of a master's degree in economics at George Mason University. The following semester he was given the opportunity to take a brief sojourn to Central America and spent eight months teaching English at the San Mateo Bilingual School in Santa Cruz de Yojoa, Honduras. 

Patrick is currently working to complete his masters, and is focusing his efforts on a study on the economics of anarchy in the Sengoku Period of feudal Japan and an analysis of the impact of U.S. monetary policy on Latin American growth.  He looks forward to study breaks out on the Potomac and inspiring new Titans to succeed in the crew program.

E-mail Patrick Marquardt

Nicole Garofalo
Nicole Garofalo is entering into her first season as a coach for TC crew.

Previously Nicole had been the head coach of the Syracuse Chargers Rowing Club in Syracuse, New York, leading her team to several grand final finishes at the Canadian Royal Henley Regatta as well as many other top ten finishes in national level regattas including Head of the Schuylkill and Head of the Charles. 

Nicole is a Syracuse University grad, where she rowed for four years, making several NCAA Division 1 varsity eight Championship appearances and captain of her team as a senior.

Email Nicole Garofalo