Holly Hatton said she never expected to stay with a high school rowing program for very long. She had just finished a nearly 25-year stint as a top collegiate coach and had competed and coached on the national team.
"I seriously thought I was just passing through," Hatton said she thought when she agreed to coach the varsity women at Bromfield-Acton/Boxborough Rowing, in Harvard Massachusetts. "I was going to coach for a season and more on." But she was struck by the commitment, work ethic and discipline her athletes showed her so she decided to stay.
And she was rewarded. Last season, Bromfield-Acton/Boxborough qualified 15 rowers for the 2013 USRowing Youth National Championships, where the women's four with coxswain won gold. She also coached a women's quad at the 2013 Henley Women's Regatta and at the 2013 Henley Royal Regatta, where it finished in the top eight.
Nominated by her team, Hatton was voted the 2013 Fan's Choice Award for Junior Coach of the Year. She will be honored for her accomplishments at the third annual Golden Oars Awards Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, at the New York Athletic Club in New York City.
"I see this award as honoring a small public high school program that had the audacity to dream big," said Hatton. "It's a testament to all the hard work put in by the athletes, parents, coaches, friends and founders of the program. No one person can create a successful rowing program.
"A great crew, a great program is the sum of its parts," she said. "This national recognition is a wonderful salute to the Bromfield Acton-Boxborough Rowing Team and its parent organization, Bare Hill Rowing Association, as we celebrate our 10th anniversary."
A four-time national team member, Hatton coxed the U.S. four to a silver medal at the 1978 World Championships and the eight to a bronze medal in 1979. She was selected for the 1980 Olympic eight, but did not have the opportunity to compete. Hatton coached the women's national team at the world championships in 1983, 1985, 1989-90, and Olympic Games in 1988 and 1992.
As novice coach at Radcliffe from 1983 to 1996, Hatton led her first and second eight to the finals at Eastern Sprints every year and the team won three NCAA championships. As women's head coach at Boston University from 1996 to 2008, Hatton's team won six NCAA championships. In 1991, Hatton was inducted into the Rowing Hall of Fame.
Hatton agreed to coach the varsity women at Bromfield Acton-Boxborough in the fall of 2009. Expecting to stay just one season, she began taking on more and more responsibility and helped organize the parent-run team.
"The parents all seemed to be incredibly committed to have the team be as good as it can be and what they lacked was organization," she said. "It was all volunteer at that point. But I'm used to organizing a lot of things and I just sort of kept picking up a little string here and a little string there and by the time the end of the spring season came they were just kind of thinking maybe we should try to figure out how to make this work so I could stay on as the program director. And they did."
In her first season with the team, her women took second place overall in the 2010 Massachusetts State School Championships and the women's first eight won gold. At the SRAA championships, the team's varsity women's double won silver and qualified for youth nationals.
Her teams continued to be competitive, finished second again at the state championships in the spring of 2011 and the women's double not only qualified for youth nationals, but also brought back a silver medal. In 2012, Bromfield-Acton/Boxborough Rowing qualified 19 rowers for youth nationals.
"Holly is what you could call the heart of our team," said team captain, Amanda Sundheimer. "She's always there to push someone to go above and beyond what they originally thought they were capable of doing. Holly's always there during that sprint to push in that last 250 meters and really get everything out of her team.
"She's an inspiration and a role model," she said. "Our team's success is a direct correlation to Holly's leadership and her ability to really make us work together as a unit and a team working towards one goal. Holly winning the award means so much to our team, and she deserves it one hundred percent."
For Hatton, the experience of coaching and growing the small team was not very different than coaching at the highest levels of rowing. "I think creating any crew, or helping a program evolve into something bigger than it was is always a challenge," she said.
"No matter where you go, I don't care if it's on the Olympic team and you're trying to get more financial support, or a university where you're trying to get the ear of somebody within the university that doesn't understand anything about rowing, or in the case of this high school program, where this was a small little program when I came here four years ago, it's always a challenge.
"Even though I won this award, it's not one person that creates a successful crew or a successful program, and so there are a lot of people who were involved in my coming to this point in my coaching career. I am very mindful that it takes a lot of people to get it all there."