Pulling Together: The Gordon Rowing Story

This article was contributed by Amber Dempsey '13 in the spring issue of The Magazine of Gordon College. 

During her Gordon admissions interview, Maddie Hopkins ’18 remembers the counselor pausing at her short list of activities: “You do know we don’t have a rowing team, right?” Maddie laughed, “Oh, don’t worry. You will.”

And just a few years later, we do. Gordon Rowing has grown from a single member—Maddie—student club into one of the College’s most competitive and distinctive athletic programs. Complete with men’s and women’s teams, a bustling boathouse in Essex, and national championship banners—Gordon rowers have gone stroke to stroke with powerhouse programs, even beating out esteemed Ivy League teams.

From student vision to collegiate club 

As the daughter of two rowing coaches growing up in Saratoga, New York, Maddie was on the water by age six. And while Gordon College didn’t look like the right fit due to its lack of a rowing program, she purposefully chose Gordon over other schools for personal reasons—proximity to family in New York and a college experience that allowed her to row and pursue her love of theatre. 

“In my conversations with Division I rowing program schools, I discovered you’re often not allowed to do both rowing and theatre because they are viewed as mutually exclusive. Gordon had a very strong theatre program, and I knew I could continue rowing on my own. That’s pretty much how I wound up here.” 

As a freshman, Maddie quickly got involved with the technical production of theatre—from working in the light booth to miking-up actors. But she knew she would have to be intentional about finding a way to get out on the water and row. 

A family friend was a member of the Cambridge Boat Club. “If you’re lucky enough to have a rack in a boathouse, you have to row a certain number of miles to keep the rack,” explained Maddie. “For that first fall and spring, I rode to log miles for an injured family friend. That was how I kept rowing and training,” said Maddie. “I wasn’t competing, but I was still training.” While logging miles was getting her on the water, she started to miss the competitive element of the sport. So, when her spring semester entrepreneurship class encouraged students to think creatively about a known problem or opportunity, she found herself drawn back to the idea of bringing rowing to Gordon. 

“The challenging thing about a rowing program is that it’s really expensive,” Maddie reasoned. “But what if I could design rowing in a way that didn’t cost the College anything? Then could we have rowing?” 

As part of her coursework, Maddie proposed a rowing club to the Gordon College Student Association (GCSA) and received approval in 2015. That summer, she worked alongside her father to raise $60,000 for the program at Gordon—a remarkable amount for any student club—and purchased the College’s first boats. 

Building a collegiate program 

The launching years were challenging for both Maddie and the rowing club. From 2015 to 2017, “it was me and one or two guys every season.” Some of the hardest moments came training alone on cold mornings. “Rowing is not inherently fun—it’s very hard. When it’s forty-five degrees outside and you’re all by yourself, you’re like, ‘I am doing this just for me. There’s nobody else benefiting. There’s no team to show up for.’” 

Skillfully, Maddie’s personal racing success kept her dream of a Gordon rowing team alive. In 2016, during her sophomore year, she placed second at the Dad Vail Regatta. “I was the fastest American at that race,” she said with a laugh—the first-place winner was from Queen’s University in Canada. In 2018, Maddie placed fourth in her heat and seventh overall at the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) National Championship. 

The defining moment came later in 2018, a month before Maddie’s graduation. “Jon Tymann, then Gordon College’s Athletic Director, asked me to come by and discuss what would happen to the rowing program after I graduated. He also shared that a donor wanted to provide the funding to buy the team a boathouse, and if they could hire a full-time coach, they’d do it. In other words, would I take the job?” 

While surprised by the offer, Maddie was excited at the opportunity to take on full leadership of Gordon’s boathouse and rowing program.

Competing with the best 

“In the fall of 2018, we started with six men and no women,” she recalled. “But my dad told me, ‘I promise you, at Gordon, the women’s team will take off.’” 

He was right. For the 2025-26 season, the Gordon rowing teams roster 15 women and eight men. The women compete in both open weight crews and varsity lightweight boats, while the men race as lightweights in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association. That puts Gordon side by side with programs like the University of Wisconsin, Princeton University, MIT, Georgetown University, and Stanford University. 

“We are the only Division III in the lightweight league,” Maddie explained. “Everyone else is Division I, with twice the number of practice days. From day one we’re fighting an uphill battle— but that makes it even more exciting when we succeed.” 

The Gordon men’s team has won scrimmages and heats over Harvard University on the Charles River and University of Pennsylvania at Nationals. “That was awesome,” Maddie reflected. “It showed everyone what our men could accomplish.” 

The women’s open weight crews have been fixtures at ACRA Championships—often outperforming established programs from across the country and around the world— becoming three time national champions. 

“In 2023, I went to China with Tiana Fox ’24 as the Women’s Rowing Head Coach for the World University Games,” shared Maddie. “We trained at the OKC National High Performance Center, and Tiana raced at the ACRA Nationals that May. At the US Summer Nationals in July, we won the women’s four.” 

In the span of three months, Tiana became a national champion twice and made the United States World University Games squad in China. “Training to be a part of the University Games was difficult, and I couldn’t have done it alone,” said Tiana. “Gordon’s rowing program and Maddie as my coach helped prepare me with prayer. I was placed in a lot of challenging rowing positions, but that helped me get comfortable with different seats. Rowing has taught me that I can power through difficult situations knowing that the pain won’t last.” 

Building more than a team 

From day one, the program’s growth has been fueled by creativity, grit, and determination. Maddie’s entrepreneurship class vision for a self-sustaining program has paid off. 

Today Gordon maintains a fleet of 40 boats—an impressive arsenal for a small program—and a lively boathouse community. The boathouse serves over 70 masters, high school, and middle school rowers. 

Rentals, community programs, and Kinderskulls—the boathouse’s youth camp—not only sustains the team financially but also connects students with alumni, local professionals, and families.

“Our boathouse is full of people who’ve had really impressive careers and are in a place to mentor our rowers,” Maddie said. “It’s incredible. We have everyone from trauma therapists to environmental lawyers offering advice and internships. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted for our students and community.” 

For the College’s students, the impact of Gordon’s rowing program extends well beyond graduation. At the 2025 Head of the Charles, 15 Gordon alumni reunited to race in the Men’s and Women’s Alumni Fours. 

“We have an alumni group chat, and we all had matching shirts,” Maddie laughed. “This group isn’t just program alumni—they were my peers. I started so young that some of my first athletes were older than me.” 

Former teammates remain invested in the next generation, too. “When I send videos of our freshman four to our alums, they’re all like, ‘Oh, there it is. It’s coming back!’” 

An inspirational future 

“Under Coach Hopkins’s leadership, our program has become a model for lightweight rowing,” said Jason Linders, Director of Athletics. “It’s an outstanding example of when you choose to glorify God through the sport, build your confidence, and expand determination—anything is possible. This team’s accomplishments are proof of that vision.” 

For Maddie, the most rewarding part of the journey isn’t just victories on the water but transforming students’ sense of themselves. 

“Rowing takes kids who didn’t think they were athletes and gives them the tools to be really good at something. You have so many different boat classes and age categories that you can intentionally create opportunities for people to shine. You can pick races and events in such a way that everyone gets their moment,” she shared. “That’s a really sweet thing.” 

With a talented freshman class, national-level competition, and a growing alumni network, Gordon Rowing is poised for even greater heights. “We’re blazing a trail,” Maddie said. “We’re creating a model for Division III lightweight rowing, and we’re setting an example for what it looks like to dream big and make it happen.” 

In rowing, as in life, confidence backed by determination has a way of making the impossible a reality, and the growth of Gordon’s rowing program shows that. In Maddie’s own words from that first admissions interview: “Oh, you will.”