Will Newell ’11: Six Years to the Olympics

It didn’t take long for Will Newell ’11 to go from novice to Olympic-caliber rower.

“Will didn’t start rowing until his junior year in high school,” said Linda Muri, Harvard’s lightweight freshman coach. “He had very good recommendations from his high school coach, but he was a little bit of a wild card.”

After coming to Harvard, Newell developed quickly, earning himself the lightweight captaincy as a senior and leading the Crimson to a combined 27-1 during his time on the 1V. A victory at Eastern Sprints and a second-place finish at IRA nationals, along with a stint on the Under-23 National team in 2010, convinced Newell to consider international rowing despite his short career.

Just six years after the start of his rowing career, the Weston, Mass., native will be representing the United States in London as a member of the lightweight four, which starts competition on Saturday. In doing so, Newell will become just the fifth Crimson lightweight rower to compete in the Olympic Games.

“I really fell in love with the sport, and I could definitely see me sticking with this for a while,” Newell said.

CHANGING THE COURSE

Harvard has a long tradition of success in the lightweight, capturing its eighth national championship last season, but its rowers have not been able to match that success on the Olympic level. Since the lightweight four was added as an event to Olympic competition in 1996, the USA has only walked away with one medal, a bronze in the Atlanta Games during those inaugural Olympic competitions. The team failed to come close in Sydney, Athens, or Beijing.

“The overarching goal is to kind of turn that around,” Newell said of the USA’s relative failure in the four. “Over the past four years, the lightweight fours internationally have been incredibly close. That means that there’s not a lot of room for error, so if we can make it to the A final, anything can happen.”

The route to the Olympics for Newell and his three fellow oarsmen was stressful. After narrowly missing a qualifying spot at the Games at the 2011 World Rowing Championships, Newell and company had to wait a year to earn their way into the Games with a first-place finish at the 2012 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta.

“It’s been such an emotional rollercoaster ever since the qualification,” Newell said. “To go from not even knowing if you’re going to have the chance to qualify to definitely going was incredible.”

Joining Newell on the fastest lightweight four US Rowing could put together are three familiar faces—every member of the boat rowed in Ivy League competition. Anthony Fahden, a 2008 Dartmouth grad and the “veteran” of the group, is the only one that Newell did not compete against or with at any level prior to joining the lightweight four.

Robin Prendes rowed for Princeton in the same year as Newell, going head-to-head with Newell for four years before joining forces this summer. Nick Lacava, a 2009 Columbia graduate, rounds out the boat.

“We were deemed the fastest US four they could put together,” Newell said. "A lot of the lightweight rowers come out of Ivy League schools, and we just happened to all earn a spot on the same boat.”

OKLAHOMA, WHERE THE BOAT COMES SWEEPING DOWN THE WATER

Unlike most of the crews which choose to train in traditional locales such as the Northeast and California, US Rowing put rowers competing for a spot on the lightweight four away from the sports’ classic centers: Oklahoma City.

A major factor in that choice was the influence of Devon Energy, an Oklahoma City-based Fortune 500 natural gas and oil company that reported $4.1 billion in profits in Fiscal Year 2011. A community effort driven by the Oklahoma City University, endeavored to build a world class rowing facility to attract Olympic hopefuls to Oklahoma City. Part of the effort was the construction of Devon Boathouse.

"OKC loves its sports and loves its athletes," said Frank Rudolph, Devon's Executive Vice President of Human Resources. "When we built the facility to attract these Olympians it was a really nice fit."

Devon Energy has provided a number of rowers, including Newell who works in the Marketing Solutions department, with jobs to support themselves as they train for international competition. The company prides itself on allowing for as much flexibility as necessary to accomodate the training schedule necessary to pursue their Olympic dreams.

“There’s a lot of community support here,” Newell said. “Devon Energy has put a lot of money into the program. If you row, you need equipment, water, a place in the community to live and jobs. OKC has done a great job providing that for us.”

After training year round in Oklahoma City, eight rowers went out to California for the national team camp. Through a series of complex assessment criteria, lightweight four coach Bryan Volpenhein and the rest of US Rowing settled on the grouping that would represent the United States at the World Championships and, after qualifying, the Olympics.

“The benefit of training together for so long is that you have tons of data,” Newell said. “You had to look at that, figure out what it said, and pare it down in order to put together the best possible boat.”

OLYMPIC CHANCES

As Newell noted, the lightweight four is one of the more competitive events on the docket during the eight day rowing competition. The defending champion Danes return a strong boat that should contend for gold. Denmark has won three of the four Gold medals in the event, but the last two World Championships were won by Italy and Great Britain.

It would take a formidable effort for the United States to break its Olympic medal drought.

“If things go well for us in the opening qualifiers, I’m optimistic that we can make something happen,” Newell said.

Just one year out of college, Newell has already outpaced the expectations of his coaches and himself. Earning a spot on the US Olympic team makes Newell, 23, the second youngest former Crimson athlete competing in these Games—only British women’s basketball player Temi Fagbenle ’15 is younger. Newell’s development over such a short period on the water hints at better things to come.

“Committing to rowing out of college is kind of putting your life on hold for a bit,” Newell said. “But for the people who have the dedication that want to do this, and know that they’ll have other opportunities after their done, there could not be anything more rewarding.”

—Staff writer Alexander Koenig can be reached at akoenig@college.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, racing facilities were said to have been located at University of Central Oklahoma. In fact, they are at Oklahoma City University.