Aug. 29, 2012
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Recently hired University of Iowa rowing head coach Steve Pritzker has announced his coaching staff, which includes two assistant coaches, a graduate assistant and a volunteer assistant. Julie Quoss will serve as assistant coach, Bridget Fowler will be on staff as a graduate assistant and former Iowa All-Big Ten selection Sheila Rinozzi has been named a volunteer assistant. Beth Redfearn will also remain on staff as an assistant coach and will be in her second season at Iowa.
“We are excited to have a new staff with tremendous energy,” Pritzker said. “Each member of our staff will play an integral role in the progress we need to make as a team.”
Quoss joins the Hawkeyes after spending five seasons as an assistant coach at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, she helped build strong novice classes that went on to win a majority of their races each fall. During the spring, Quoss led the fours to the grand finals, both top finishes for Penn at the inaugural Ivy League Championship last season.
Her fours, second varsity eight and third varsity eight have also finished as high as fourth in the Eastern Sprints Championship. Those strong results helped the team gain its highest ranking in recent history, placing among the top 20.
She also served as Penn’s recruiting coordinator, helping Penn bring in its largest class in program history during the 2010-2011 season and its strongest class in the 2011-12 season.
In her first season at Penn, Quoss helped the team rank second in the Mid-Atlantic Region and gain their best finish in the Eastern Sprints since 1982. For her efforts, she was nominated for the Mid-Atlantic Assistant Coach of the Year.
Quoss will be no stranger to Big Ten rowing, as she was a standout walk-on for Wisconsin from 2001-2005. Quoss was a member of Wisconsin’s V8 that twice competed at the NCAA Championships after a five year hiatus. Her boats also medaled at the Big Ten Championships and Central Sprints. Quoss earned first and second All-Central Region team honors and was a National Scholar Athlete. She graduated from Wisconsin with a Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education.
Following graduation, Quoss helped manage the Wisconsin team from 2005-2006 and then spent a year as an assistant coach and head novice coach at Bucknell University from 2006-2007. She then trained and raced with the Vesper Summer Elites, coming away with five gold medals at Canadian Henley. Quoss also went on to help coach the Vesper Elites during the summers of 2007 and 2010.
Fowler competed for Pritzker at Virginia from 2005-09 and was a member of three ACC championship teams. She also helped Virginia win the South/Central Regionals in 2007 and 2009, along with a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships in 2007. Fowler was named All-ACC in 2009.
Following her stellar collegiate career, Fowler coached the varsity women for the St. Andrew Rowing Club for three years, serving as head coach form 2010-12. In 2011, Fowler coached the 1x to a second place finish and the 4+ to a sixth place finish at Youth Nationals. Her 4+ and 4x squads also qualified for Youth Nationals in 2012.
Fowler received her B.S. in Anthropology from Virginia in 2009.
Former Hawkeye Sheila Rinozzi rejoins the Iowa program after spending two years as the varsity women’s assistant coach at Loyola Academy and the past two seasons as an events and operations intern in the Harvard athletic department.
Rinozzi graduated from Iowa in 2010 with a B.A. degree in Interdepartmental Studies and Health Sciences after an accomplished career with the rowing team. She was named first team All-Big Ten and the team’s co-captain her junior and senior seasons.
Rinozzi was a first team All-Big Ten selection her juniors year. She won the petite finals at the Big Ten Championships and placed first in petite finals of the Central/South Regionals. Rinozzi was a four-year letterwinner at Iowa.
Rinozzi spent a summer at the United States Rowing Association as a National Team Programs Intern before spending the 2010-2011 season as a novice coach at Northwestern.
She earned a master’s degree from the University of Washington in 2012 in Intercollegiate Athletic Leadership.