The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Rowing honored former head coach Carie Graves during alumni weekend
01.20.2024 | Rowing, T-Association
Carie Graves helped launch Texas Rowing as the first head coach in program history.
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Rowing recognized the late Carie Graves, the first head coach in program history, with a plaque in her honor inside the Erg room of the Texas Basketball and Rowing Facility on Friday evening. The event coincided with reunion weekend, with well over 100 alumnae returning to the Forty Acres for the festivities. The reunion weekend was hosted by the T-Association and Texas Rowing.
"What matters most is the person you are and the lives that you affect, and Carie affected so many lives and was such a wonderful person," said current head coach Dave O'Neill. "But she was also a total killer, she was the Erg queen, and her strength, passion and fire are certainly felt in this room."
A legend in the sport, Graves built the Texas Rowing program from the ground up beginning in the fall of 1998, steering the Longhorns to two NCAA Championships appearances and five conference titles before retiring from coaching in 2014.
"Carie was the smartest, the most determined, the most committed individual I think I've ever been around," said former Texas Women's Athletic Director Jody Conradt. "She challenged all of us and she was demanding but she never asked anyone to do more than she had done, probably tenfold. She set the standard."
Under Graves' guidance, Texas earned its first NCAA Championships bid in 2003, when the first varsity eight placed 12th nationally, and made a return visit to the championship regatta in 2004, with the first eight finishing 15th. It was an historic year for Texas Rowing in 2004 as Ruth Stiver and Julie Keedy became the program's first Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) All-Americans.
"Carie loved nothing more than seeing young women at The University of Texas, come out (to the boathouse), try something new and discover their own power and strength," said former Longhorn rower (2005-08) and graduate assistant coach Danielle Bartz. "While she's not here to see this place, and today's team training and winning, she knew (these days) were coming. She knew we were tough; she knew we were fast, she knew Texas could train hard and win national championships."
Government and Spanish degrees and Masters from LBJ School of Public Affairs 2015
Volunteer Rowing Coach 2011-12 | Graduate Assistant Rowing Coach 2012-15
Graves directed Texas to four-straight Big 12 crowns, leading UT to victory at the inaugural Big 12 Championship in 2009 and repeating the feat in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The three-time U.S. Olympian also led the Longhorns to victory at the 2011 Conference USA Championship.
The 2012 Big 12 Coach of the Year, Graves was also selected as the 2011 Conference USA Coach of the Year and named the 2011 CRCA South Region Coach of the Year after leading the Longhorns to dual conference championships.
Graves' Longhorns produced 15 All-Big 12 and 66 Academic All-Big 12 selections and also collected 11 All-Conference USA honorees in its five seasons as a C-USA affiliate member.
Jennifer VanderMaarel became UT's third All-American under Graves' tutelage in 2011, when she earned second-team honors and was selected as UT's first Conference USA Athlete of the Year. Laurel McCaig became the Longhorns' first-ever Big 12 Rower of the Year in 2012 after helping Texas to its fourth-straight Big 12 championship.
Prior to taking the reins in Austin, Graves served as the head women's rowing coach for 10 seasons at Northeastern University (1988-98). She broke into the coaching profession as the head women's crew coach at Harvard/Radcliffe in 1977 and served there through 1983.
Graves enjoyed a distinguished rowing career of her own and was selected to three U.S. Olympic teams (1976, '80 and '84) and five additional U.S. national teams (1975, '77, '79, '81 and '83). Graves helped the USA women's eight to gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and bronze at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Graves was a member of the U.S. Olympic Team that boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games. At the 1975 World Championships she won a silver medal as part of the "Red Rose Crew" that ushered in a new era of competition for women in the male dominated sport.
The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) selected Graves as U.S. Rowing's Female Athlete of the Year in 1981 and 1984. The National Rowing Foundation inducted Graves twice into its Hall of Fame as a member of the 1980 and 1984 U.S. Olympic Teams and she was selected as one of the "Century's Most Notable People" in American Rowing by the 2000-01 American Rower's Almanac. In 2022, USRowing renamed its Female Athlete of the Year Award in honor of the Graves. The Carie Graves Female Athlete of the Year Award is selected annually by athletes on that year's senior national team.
A 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Graves guided the Badgers to the 1975 National Rowing Association Championship, the first National Championship to be won by a UW varsity women's team. A native of Madison, Wisc., Graves was the first-ever inductee into the school's Women's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1984 and was ranked No. 16 on her alma mater's list of "Top 100 Athletes of the Century." Graves completed a master's of education at Harvard in 1985.
"Carie Graves is described as an icon, as a legend, and as a force of nature, and she was all of that," Bartz said. "But at Texas, she was the creator of this program, the architect, the believer and she was coach."
