PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Bryan Volpenhein has been the head men’s heavyweight rowing coach at the University of Pennsylvania since 2019. He's also an elite rower in his own right, and was part of a boat that won Olympic gold in 2004 and bronze in 2008.
Volpenhein actually didn't start rowing until college. He remembered seeing a flyer advertising the rowing team during his visit to Ohio State that caught his interest.
"I thought the picture looked cool and I thought it would be neat to try. I took it off the bulletin board there and brought it home," he recalled.
"Fast forward to my fall quarter, I was sitting around my dorm room with my roommates and one of them had heard about the rowing team as well, and he was like, 'Isn't that rowing meeting tonight?' and I was like, 'Oh yeah, I guess we should go to that.' Literally walked down the stairs of our dorm and across the street to the boathouse, which was right on campus, and went to the meeting. Fell in love with the atmosphere of the boathouse and just the people that were involved."
Volpenhein's gold medal came in the 2004 summer games in Athens in the men's eight. He remembers what it was like crossing the finish line and winning gold.
"When you win a race like that, any fatigue goes right out the window. The coxswain jumped in my arms. You are yelling and screaming. I stood up and started pointing to all the guys in my boat. You basically just want to go walk up and down the boat and hug everybody, but obviously you can't," he explained.
"So it's just like, you are stuck in this boat and all the crowds around you are going crazy and it's amazing. Then you kind of row around and do a little tour of the stands, which is a lot of fun. My brother jumped in and swam out to us and brought us a flag and then we kind of waved that flag back and forth in front of the stands."
You can listen to the entire interview with Bryan Volpenhein by checking out the latest episode, above, of the KYW Newsradio original podcast, "1-on-1 with Matt Leon." For more, subscribe on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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