Yale

Laura Simon joined the Bulldogs as an assistant coach prior to the 2015-16 season. She transitioned to a volunteer assistant in July of 2021.

Simon oversees recruiting and works side by side with the other coaches as they share duties in the best interest of the team. She has been a force in recruiting, identifying and transitioning global talent to Yale. Simon has produced some of the top recruiting classes that Yale and the lvy League have seen within the sport of rowing.  

In addition she has led the third varsity eight to a pair of gold medals at the Ivy League Championship and plays an integral role in the team’s coxswain development.  Simon has twice been honored with the distinction of Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association New England Region Assistant Coach of the Year Award (now Regional Staff of the Year Award).

Simon has accumulated experience at the international, national and NCAA Division I levels.

She spent six years on the UMass women’s rowing staff, rising to the position of associate head coach in 2012. In 2014, she helped guide the Minutewomen to the NCAA Championship following an Atlantic 10 Championship. She also served as the recruiting coordinator during her later tenure with the Minutewomen.

Simon has considerable experience with USRowing, spending nine years in various roles with the USA U19 Team.  She was the 2017 Women’s Pair Coach for the World Rowing Championships. In 2014, she served as the head coach for the U.S. Team at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.  And from 2010 to 2015 served in various other roles from coxswain selector to assistant coach to head coach of the High Performance Sweep Camp and the United States Junior National CanAmMex teams.

Laura continues to work with the USA U19 team to select their coxswains. She is considered the premier coxswain coach in the world and works with U19, U23, and senior coxswains/coaches around the world helping them craft their coxswain skills and/or coxswain coaching skills.

Simon also is a published author in the sport of rowing in tandem, co-authoring The Coxswain’s Encyclopedia. She presents Coaching the Coxswain to her peers at the USRowing Convention and smaller conferences and runs live, virtual and on-demand clinics on Coxswain Education and Team Building. 

Simon was an accomplished coxswain. She guided a UMass varsity eight to a second-place finish at the NCAA Championship and also served as second coxswain for the U.S. National Women’s Rowing team from 1997 to 2002.

She graduated from UMass with a degree in English in 1998 and went on to earn a Master of Education in Teacher Preparation and Curriculum Studies in 2001. In addition, she achieved a Level 1 Special Education Credential from San Jose State in 2004.  She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in School Psychology at UMass-Amherst.