March 15, 2014
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IOWA CITY, Iowa — Although Andrew Carter may be in his first year as the head coach of the University of Iowa rowing program, he is not a stranger to the profession. The third head coach in as many years of the Hawkeyes and Canada native has held coaching positions at the University of Miami, Clemson University, Bates College (Maine), University of Southern California, and Vassar College (New York), and has experience coaching internationally.
Carter displays an impressive resume, as he has demonstrated his ability to turn programs into conference and national contenders. Most recently at Miami, Carter helped the Hurricanes reach as high as sixth in the NCAA polls.
Carter is ready to improve an Iowa program that has been in the lower half of the Big Ten since 2008, and placed sixth out of seven teams at the 2013 Big Ten Championships. The program has not appeared in the national rankings since 2009, when the Hawkeyes were ranked 18th.
Carter has been pleased with the work ethic he’s seen from this year’s squad in his seven months at Iowa, and sees their dedication as a key component of the program’s progression.
“There has been a fantastic level of training from the women,” Carter said. “We have made some advances in a lot of critical areas. Obviously, this winter has not helped us too much, but the athletes have shown themselves to be competitive with the off-water measures that we can come up with. Our time on the water is very crucial as well.”
“Each student-athlete on the team seems to bring something to the table. There are those quiet ones that come in every day and train really hard with great attitudes, and there are others that are more vocal and excited about anything. Everybody has got a little piece of something that is really contributing.”
The team’s hard work over the past few months will help prepare them for the highly competitive spring slate. The Hawkeyes will compete against several programs that reached the NCAA championships last year, including Clemson and conference foes Ohio State and Wisconsin.
Carter attributes much of his coaching success to competing against the best teams, and looks forward to seeing how Iowa compares to the best throughout the course of the 2014 season.
“I think we need to get a sense of where we really are as a team,” Carter said. “We are going to get that right out of the gate because we open up against two really good ACC schools, Duke and Clemson. Also Kansas, who in the past year has been a team that has started to come on in the Big 12. We are going to be tested each weekend.”
Iowa rowing fans will have two opportunities to see the how hard the Hawkeyes have worked and progressed in person at the team’s home meets on April 12 against Ohio State, Indiana and Louisville and on April 27 against Minnesota.
The 2014 season begins on March 22 in Clemson, S.C., against Clemson, Duke, Kansas and Purdue. Fans can view the competition live through a video stream. A link is available on the rowing schedule page on hawkeyesports.com.