Wyatt Allen - Men's Heavyweight Rowing Coach - Dartmouth College Athletics

Photo by: John Risley

Wyatt Allen

Title:
Betsy and Mark Gates 1959 Head Coach of Men's Heavyweight Rowing
Alma Mater:
Virginia ’01
Email:
wyatt.r.allen@dartmouth.edu
Phone (603):
603-646-2450
At Dartmouth:
7th Season

	Betsy and Mark Gates 1959 Head Coach of Men's Heavyweight Crew
	Mark Gates '59 and his wife, Betsy, have endowed this position. A former Dartmouth rower, Gates is principal of Gates Land Company, a private real estate development firm based in Palo Alto, California. Read more ...

Wyatt Allen is entering his 12th season at Dartmouth in 2025-26 as the Betsy and Mark Gates 1959 Head Coach of Men's Heavyweight Rowing.

Under Allen’s leadership, the Big Green have developed into one of the nation’s top programs. Over the past five seasons, the program has won eight medals at the IRA National Championship and 14 medals at the EARC Sprints.

The 2025 season was a historic one, with the varsity eight earning a bronze medal at the IRA national Championship, just 0.15 seconds behind Harvard in second and only 1.12 seconds behind first-place and national champion Washington. This capped off an undefeated dual season for the 1V, including winning the Olympic Axe at Yale for the first time in the cup’s 21-year history. The program’s 2V and 4V crews also earned bronze medals at the 2025 Eastern Sprints.

Honors were abundant after the historic season. Allen was named the IRCA National Coach of the Year. Five student-athletes were named Empacher-IRCA All-Americans. Billy Bender and Miles Hudgins were named to the first team, with Isaiah Harrison, Julian Thomas and Munroe Robinson all garnering second team All-America recognition. The five All-Americans were tied for the most nationally.

Bender returned to Dartmouth for 2024-25 after spending the previous spring training for the Olympics in Paris, France. He, with Big Green rowing alum Oliver Bub ’20 (also coached by Allen) teamed up to finish 10th in the world in the men’s pair. Allen served as their coach leading into and during the event in Paris. The Big Green at the world’s biggest stage has become more and more common. Last summer in 2025, Bender and Jacob Hudgins ’24 were both in the USA eight that won bronze at the World Rowing Championship. Bender also finished fifth in the pair at the 2023 World Rowing Championship.

During Allen’s tenure, the Big Green have consistently sent student-athletes to the Under-23 World Championships as well. Most recently, James Frederikson competed for Australia in the eight, with Aron Kalmar a member of the coxless four for Hungary at the 2025 U23 World Championships. In the summer of 2024, Miles Hudgins, Julian Thomas and Sammy Houdaigui took part in the World Under-23 Championship, with Hudgins earning gold in the four and Thomas and Houdaigui capturing silver in the eight.

In 2024, the Big Green impressed on the water in finishing eighth in team points at the IRA National Championship — the fourth straight season Dartmouth finished top 10 nationally. At IRAs, the Big Green’s varsity four captured a silver medal, with their second varsity eight taking bronze — marking the third time in four seasons Dartmouth’s 2V medaled at nationals. This came after Dartmouth took bronze at Eastern Sprints as well.

Additional program highlights and awards during Allen’s tenure included:

1V (3^rd), 2V (2^nd), and 3V (3^rd) crews won medals at the 2021 IRA National Championship
Allen and staff named 2021 National Head Coach and Staff of the Year by the IRCA
Program won the Clayton Chapman Trophy for being the most improved team in the IRA team points standing in both 2017 and 2021
Allen named 2017 Ivy League Coach of the Year

A 2001 graduate of Virginia, where he was a captain and four-year member of the men's rowing team, Allen would go on to represent the United States at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Athens and Beijing. He won gold in Greece, setting a world record in the process, before adding a bronze medal with the US eight in China four years later. A nine-time national team member, Allen was tabbed as US Rowing's 2007 Male Athlete of the Year, an honor he had also shared in 2004. His achievements have also earned him induction into the halls of fame with both the National Rowing Foundation and New York Athletic Club in recent years.

Following the Olympics in Beijing, Allen began his coaching career with the University of Washington, spending one season with the Huskies before accepting the position at Cal the following summer. While in Seattle, he helped lead the program to a historic three-boat sweep at the 2009 IRA Regatta and a team national championship.

It was with the Golden Bears, serving as the freshmen coach and recruiting coordinator, that Allen added two more titles to his resume, leading the freshmen eight to an undefeated 2011 season that included a victory in the Temple Challenge Cup at the Royal Henley Regatta in England, as well as the IRA National Championship. The previous season, Allen was an assistant as the varsity eight won the 2010 IRA National Championship.

Coach Allen lives in Hanover, NH with his wife, Rachel Jeffers, a world champion oarswoman herself, and their two children, Josie and Reed.