Men's Rowing - Coaches

Mike McDonald joins the University of Rhode Island as the men's head rowing coach. Mike has been coaching for over fifteen years, and is coming from WPI where he helped to develop the Worcester Polytechnic Institute team from club level to a competitive varsity program. He has spent summers coaching sculling at the US Senior National Lightweight Development Camp at Riverside Boat Club, and has worked with several other competitive programs including St John's High School, Emory University, and Wellesley College. In addition to coaching Mike has gained a wealth of sport related experience as a boat builder with Composite Engineering, a sales rep for Wintech Racing, and as a GM for Klinger Engineering. Mike began his rowing career at Shrewsbury High School making the varsity boat first as a coxn, then as a rower. His college rowing experience was at Worcester State where he was a four year varsity oarsman and won Bronze at the New England Championship. His course of study at college earned him a B.S. in business administration, and accounting.

Blake Cushing continues with URI as the Assistant Varsity coach. Blake began his rowing career at Narragansett Boat Club before coming to the URI. Once here Blake rowed as a varsity member for four years winning the prestigious Oarsman of the year award in 2009. Blake was a major contributor to the varsity fours Bronze medal finish at the ACRA National Championship Regatta in Oakridge Tennessee last spring. Blake's studies include a B.A. in both Political Science, and Film Media.

Andrew(AJ)Fournier stays with URI as the Men's head freshman coach. AJ is a four year member of the URI Men's team, three year Varsity Coxn, the 07-08 President, and 08-09 Captain. Aj coxed the men's four to a bronze medal at the ACRA National Championship in Oakridge this past spring. He has been coaching for two years at Riverfront Recapture Inc. in Hartford CT, and has won multiple medals with their masters program. Aj has his Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering from the University of Rhode Island.

Dylan Eberle comes to the University of Rhode Island Men's Rowing team from Bates College. As a four year member of the Bates Men's Varsity Rowing team Dylan helped set team records in the varsity eight at the 2007 Head of the Charles and 2008 ECAC Regattas. Dylan is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in geosciences at the University of Rhode Island. As a volunteer assistant coach Dylan will be working primarily with the novice men. He is excited about the opportunity to help others discover, and excel at, the sport of rowing.