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| Full name | Michael Louis Vespoli | ||||||||||||||
| Born | December 14, 1946 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
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Michael Louis Vespoli (born December 14, 1946) [1] is a former American rower and rowing coach. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Vespoli USA, Inc., a boat manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut, that makes shells for rowing teams and individual rowers. Vespoli was born in New Haven, Connecticut. [1]
 | This section contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(November 2017) |
His career in rowing started in 1964 when he joined the Georgetown University crew as a walk-on. He went on to row on a team that placed in the 1972 Munich Olympics. [2] He later was a sculling coach for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. [3]
As boat technology developed rapidly in England with the advent of carbon fiber and other materials used by the aerospace industry, Vespoli started his company with the help of his retired machinist father in 1980 in New Haven. His wife Nancy Vespoli, who was on the women's crew at Dartmouth College and was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic rowing crew, has a master's degree in chemical engineering from M.I.T. and is also involved in the business. The company has become a well-known boat maker with models that have won many elite races. [4]
National Schoolboy Champions
Two consecutive Dad Vail Men's 8 Champions
Vespoli was given the goal to develop a nationally recognized rowing program in three years.
The Tony Johnson-Mike Vespoli coaching combination proves to be formidable. In 1979, Yale sweeps in in HW Men's V and JV the Eastern Sprints. Yale's Heavyweight Men's 8 places first again at the 1981 Eastern Sprints. In the four years (1981–1984) following Mike Vespoli's departure as Yale's Frosh Men's Heavyweight coach, Yale's Varsity Men's Heavyweight Crew defeated Harvard in the annual Harvard-Yale race. Yale had not defeated Harvard in 18 years.
From an interview with Rowing News' Jeff Moag, November 2009, Mike Vespoli said, "We won the Eastern Sprints, we beat Harvard, I made enemies with Harry Parker. I think my proudest coaching moment is that when I left Yale and my three classes of freshmen filled the sophomore, junior, and senior years at Yale, those were classes that didn’t lose to Harvard."
Mike Vespoli's career has been closely associated with Coach Tony Johnson. Johnson coached Vespoli at Georgetown from 1967 to 1969. Johnson was the assistant coach and Vespoli an oarsman on the 1972 U.S. Olympic Crew. Johnson recommended Vespoli for the Wichita State University position, and Johnson hired Vespoli as Yale's Frosh Men's Coach in 1977. Vespoli is Committee Co-Chair of the Georgetown University Boathouse project where Johnson has coached since 1989.
Vespoli is a former member of the U.S. Olympic Committee for Men's Rowing, a consultant to the President's Commission on Olympic Sports and was an NBC commentator for rowing in Barcelona in 1992.
A member of both the National Rowing Foundation Hall of Fame and the Georgetown Athletic Hall of Fame, Mike has maintained a strong connection to the Georgetown crew program that launched his professionally and personally rewarding career. He served as the chair of the rowing association's board of directors for 16 years and has been a member of the board of regents for another 16. In 2000, Georgetown honored Mike with the Outstanding Service to Athletics award. Mike and his wife, Nancy, are members of the Georgetown 1789 Society.
Mike and Nancy Vespoli established the Vespoli Family Crew Scholarship at Georgetown University in 2003. The scholarship provides financial aid to one or more intercollegiate rowers who demonstrate financial need. The Vespolis have also donated money in support of the Georgetown University Boathouse project. In April 2006, Nancy Vespoli donated a shell to the Dartmouth College Women's Crew. The crew christened the new shell, the "Fast Eddie." The shell was named after Nancy's father, Eddie Parssinen.
In 2000, Vespoli was honored with the "Power Ten" award. The award is given to those who are committed to supporting the sport of rowing, both nationally and internationally.
Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is divided into two disciplines: sculling and sweep rowing. In sculling, each rower holds two oars, one in each hand, while in sweep rowing each rower holds one oar with both hands. There are several boat classes in which athletes may compete, ranging from single sculls, occupied by one person, to shells with eight rowers and a coxswain, called eights. There are a wide variety of course types and formats of racing, but most elite and championship level racing is conducted on calm water courses 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long with several lanes marked using buoys.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
The Harvard–Yale Regatta or Yale-Harvard Boat Race is an annual rowing race between the men's heavyweight rowing crews of Harvard University and Yale University. First contested in 1852, it has been held annually since 1859 with exceptions during major wars fought by the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Race is America's oldest collegiate athletic competition, pre-dating The Game by 23 years. It is sometimes referred to as the "Yale-Harvard" regatta, though most official regatta programs brand it "Harvard-Yale".
Vespoli USA is a manufacturer of rowing shells. It was founded by former Georgetown University rower and Olympian Mike Vespoli in 1980.
Harry Parker was the head coach of the Harvard varsity rowing program (1963–2013). He also represented the United States in the single scull at the 1960 Summer Olympics.
The Detroit Boat Club was established in 1839, as a sport rowing club. It was first created on the Detroit River during a time in which Detroit was just starting to grow. The Detroit Boat Club is a member of the Detroit Regional Yacht-racing Association (DRYA).
The Georgetown Hoyas are the collegiate athletics teams that officially represent Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C. Georgetown's athletics department fields 24 men's and women's varsity level teams and competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Big East Conference, with the exception of the Division I FCS Patriot League in football and women's heavyweight rowing. The University also fields 5 non-NCAA varsity teams in men's heavyweight and lightweight rowing, women's lightweight rowing, women's squash, and sailing. In late 2012, Georgetown and six other Catholic, non-FBS schools announced that they were departing the Big East for a new conference. The rowing and sailing teams also participate in east coast conferences. The men's basketball team is the school's most famous and most successful program, but Hoyas have achieved success in a wide range of sports.
Stephen C. Gladstone, or Steve Gladstone as he is better known, is one of the premier rowing coaches in the United States. Before retiring, he last coached at Yale University. Previously, he coached at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also served as athletic director.
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the NCAA fulfills this role for women's open weight rowing. It is the direct successor to the Rowing Association of American Colleges, the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, which operated from 1870–1894.
PLU Crew is the varsity rowing program for Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. The team was founded in 1964 as a joint program with University of Puget Sound. Today the team consists of Men's and Women's programs for both Varsity and Novice rowers, and competes as a member of the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference (NCRC) and Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association (WIRA).
The Davis Men's Crew Club is a collegiate sports club representing the University of California, Davis in rowing. As a non-funded team, it is a member of the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association (WIRA), whose participants are mostly of non-Pac-10 schools on the West Coast. Nationwide, the team is one of the most successful collegiate rowing club programs in the United States, making periodic appearances in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association national championships, the Eastern College Athletic Conference and, more recently, the American Collegiate Rowing Association national championships. Notable alumni include Seth Weil, who rowed in the USA men's coxless four at the 2016 Rio Olympics and who holds two world rowing championship first place titles in the men's four; as well as Carlo Facchino who has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest Pacific Ocean crossing from Monterey, CA to Honolulu, Hawaii with a time of 39 days, 9 hours and 56 minutes.
John Anthony Pescatore is an American rower. He competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games for the United States as stroke of the men's eight which placed third. He later competed at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games in the men's coxless pair. Then in 2000 he was placed top coach in America for coaching the coxless pair to silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Pescatore was also in the 1987 eight that won the world championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Penn Quakers are the athletic teams of the University of Pennsylvania. The school sponsors 33 varsity sports. The school has won three NCAA national championships in men's fencing and one in women's fencing.
Philip Anthony Johnson is a retired American rower. He competed in coxless pairs at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics and won a silver medal in 1968.
The College Boat Club of the University of Pennsylvania is the rowing program for University of Pennsylvania Rowing, which is located in the Burk-Bergman Boathouse at #11 Boathouse Row on the historic Boathouse Row of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its membership consists entirely of past and present rowers of the University of Pennsylvania.
Gillin Boat Club is the rowing program for St. Joseph's University Rowing and St. Joseph's Prep Rowing. It is situated at the 1,000-meter mark of the Schuylkill River race course in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gillin Boat Club was admitted to the Schuylkill Navy in 2004, by a unanimous vote of the Navy's members.
The Brown University men's rowing team represents Brown University in men's intercollegiate rowing and is the oldest organized intercollegiate sport at the university. Since its revival in 1949, the Brown University rowing program has become one of the most successful collegiate rowing programs in the world, winning men's and women's national titles, as well as championship titles at the world-famous Henley Royal Regatta in England. In addition, the program has produced 32 Olympic rowers.
The University of Oregon Rowing Team is located in Eugene, Oregon, and practices at Dexter Reservoir nearby. The team was founded in 1967 and has operated continuously under the guidance of the University. At Oregon, men's and women's teams practice together and compete against other teams regionally and nationally in a number of regattas each year. Even before the passage of Title IX in 1972, the team received national attention for Coach Don Costello's controversial use of female coxswain Victoria Brown in crew, in a previously all-male sport.
Ken Dreyfuss is an American coxswain. He captained and coxed the 1969 Penn heavyweight crew that broke Harvard's six year winning streak and went on to win three consecutive team championships at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships. He competed in the men's coxed pair event at the 1975 World Rowing Championships, the 1975 Pan-American Games, and the 1976 Summer Olympics.
John Biglow is a retired American rower. Regarded as the best US single sculler of the early 1980s, he competed and finished fourth in the men's single sculls event at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
