From OCU Sports
Rich Tortorelli, Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City University has selected Tom Dougherty as head men’s and women’s rowing coach.
Mike Knopp has been named OCU’s director of river operations. Dougherty comes to OCU from Iona, where he had served as assistant men’s and women’s rowing coach for the previous two seasons.
In addition to Iona, Dougherty has coached at Jacksonville University and Monsignor Bonner High School in Drexel Hill, Pa. He has spent the past two summers as head women’s coach for the New York Athletic Club, leading a crew to a club national championship each summer.
“I am excited to have Tom take over the reigns of the program I launched as a club in 2000 and a varsity program in 2003,” Knopp said. “As the first intercollegiate rowing program in central Oklahoma, OCU rowing has quickly grown to become a nationally competitive program, and I look forward to seeing Tom build upon our success both on the water and in the classroom. We are still a very young program in relationship to the sport of rowing, the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. We’ve established traditions in our formative years, and I look forward to see these traditions flourish and new traditions born under Tom’s leadership.”
Oklahoma City’s varsity eight took runner-up in the 2016 Western Sprints. OCU won the event and advanced to the International Rowing Association Championships for the first time in 2015. The Stars have captured eight gold medals in the Dad Vail Regatta and won five consecutive Head of the Hooch points trophies.
Dougherty will make his OCU debut in the Head of the Oklahoma Regatta on Oct. 1-2 at the Oklahoma River.
“I am honored and excited to have been given this opportunity to come to Oklahoma City University,” Dougherty said. “I look forward to continuing to build the rowing programs to be successful both in the classroom and on the water. I want to give the OCU student-athletes every opportunity to succeed and represent OCU proudly.”
At Iona, Dougherty helped lead the Gaels to their first appearance in the Dad Vail Regatta in the women’s varsity eight. He guided the varsity student-athletes in the spring and the novice squad in the fall.
At Jacksonville, Dougherty, as assistant men’s coach, aided its freshmen eight to the 2013 Florida Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship and finals of the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships and the Dad Vail Regatta. In 2014, Dougherty helped the Jacksonville freshman-novice eight to first-place finishes at the FIRA Championships and Dad Vail Regatta and second at the SIRA Championships.
Dougherty earned his bachelor’s degree in broadcasting with a minor in journalism from Marietta College (Ohio). Dougherty competed with the rowing team as coxswain for the varsity eight. As a freshman, Dougherty was named captain and guided the freshmen eight to a fifth-place showing at the Dad Vail Regatta. Dougherty became president of the student-athlete advisory committee as a senior.
As a prep competitor at Monsignor Bonner, he served as coxswain for crews that won two medals at the Philadelphia City Championship finals and three medals at the Philadelphia Catholic League Championship.