Head Coach • Men's Lightweight Crew
Virginia '83
Joe Murtaugh enters his 12th year as the head coach of the Tiger varsity lightweights with a record of 63-8. In addition to his coaching duties he serves as the administrator for the Princeton crew program.
Murtaugh has led Princeton to four national championships ('89, '94, '96, '98) and three Eastern Sprints titles ('96, '98, '99). In 1998 and 1999, his first, second and third varsity crews had perfect regular seasons with EARC Sprints championships.
Murtaugh is a 1983 graduate of the University of Virginia, where he coached women's crew for four years prior to his arrival at Princeton.
Since 1997, Murtaugh has coached the U.S. national lightweight eight. In 1999, he coached the lightweight eight to a gold medal at the World Championships in St. Catharines, Ontario _ the first victory in that event for the U.S. in 25 years. In 1998, Murtaugh's lightweight eight won the silver medal at the World Championships in Cologne, Germany.
Heather Putnam
Assistant Coach • Women's Crew
Massachusetts-Amherst '98
Heather Putman enters her first year as an assistant coach with the crew program
after completing a successful career as a rower
for the University of Massachusetts (1994-98). In her four years as a Minutewoman,
Putnam helped lead the varsity lightweight eight to
an Eastern Sprints title in 1996 and won the Atlantic Ten Conference championship with the
junior varsity eight in 1997.
Putnam came to Old Nassau from Amherst College, where she
served as the coach of the varsity and novice crews during the 1998-99 season. During the summer of 1998, Putnam taught rowing technique to novice and
intermediate rowers.
Andrea Thies
Assistant Coach • Women's Open Crew
Cornell '89
Andrea Thies is in her third year with the Princeton women's crew program and her second year as an assistant coach with the open crew. She has several years' experience working with rowing clubs in Washington, D.C.
Thies, a 1989 Cornell graduate, was a member of the Big Red's national-champion eight as a senior. She also has rowed with the national team since 1991 and has competed in the Olympics and Pan Am Games, where she won a silver medal in the double scull in 1995. Thies finished eighth in the 1996 Olympics in the quadruple scull.
Her first novice lightweight boat won Eastern Sprints in 1998.
Greg Hughes
Assistant Coach • Heavyweight Crew
Princeton '96
Greg Hughes, who helped the Tiger lightweight crew row to two national titles as an
undergraduate, is in his third year as an
assistant coach with Princeton rowing program.
Hughes spent 1997 as an intern with the Tiger
heavyweight and lightweight men's crews. His first freshman heavyweight boat won Eastern
Sprints in 1998.
Hughes is a 1996 Princeton graduate who was an All-Ivy League rower on the 1994 and 1996 national championship lightweight crews. He served as team captain in
1995-96 and won the Gordon G. Sikes Award for the largest contribution to
Princeton lightweight crew.
He has also been an alternate on the 1997 and 1998 lightweight
sweep teams at the World Championships and was a coach in 1999.
Seth Brennan
Assistant Coach • Men's Lightweight Crew
Princeton '98
A 1998 graduate of Princeton, Seth Brennan returns to Old Nassau for his first season as a men's assistant. Brennan comes to Princeton from Rutgers, where he
coached the freshman heavyweight men.
While at Princeton, Brennan was a two-time first-team All-Ivy selection and a
member of the 1998 national champion team. He
helped lead the Tigers to their first Eastern
Sprints title in 1995 and again in 1997. In 1997
the heavyweight varsity eight posted the program's first undefeated season
since 1881.
Brennan has experience at the international level as a member of the
Canadian National Team in 1995 and 1996.
