NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale's Steve Gladstone, Craig W. Johnson '68 Head Coach of Heavyweight Crew, has announced that he will retire at the conclusion of the 2022-23 season, capping a 13-year coaching career at Yale and a 50-plus year career that has spanned five schools.
 
"I consider it an honor and a privilege to work closely with Steve, a proven coaching legend and inspiring leader. He has brought Yale's Heavyweight Crew program and every program under him to national and global success and has been instrumental in the growth of the sport," said Victoria "Vicky" M. Chun, Thomas A. Beckett Director of Athletics. "In his career, Steve has achieved more success than most could dream of having in a lifetime. He is truly The Most Interesting Man in the World."
 
Gladstone took over the Yale heavyweight crew program in 2010 and coached his first official race in the spring of 2011. When he stepped foot on campus, he was already regarded as one of the premier rowing coaches in the United States and when it is all said and done in 2023, he will most certainly cap his career as the most successful coach in the history of collegiate crew.
 
He has a long list of accolades on his distinguished résumé highlighted by 14 Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) National Championships, one of only two collegiate coaches to achieve this feat. Gladstone has received the US Rowing Medal and earned a trifecta of Coach of the Year honors from the IRA, Ivy League and the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC). Additionally, he has hoisted trophies for the Henley Royal Regatta, Eastern Sprints and Pac-10 championships among a plethora of other events.
 
The Yale heavyweights have won five national championships all-time, and three have been in Gladstone's tenure at Yale. The Bulldogs have 15 EARC titles since 1948, and six have been led by the legendary coach. Yale has been Rowe Cup Champions (Eastern Sprints overall supremacy) six times, four of which have come with Gladstone at the helm.
 
The 2022 season was an exceptional time for the Yale heavyweights led by Gladstone. Not only did the Bulldogs capture their first Ten Eyck Trophy for overall performance at IRAs, but for the first time in 26 years, Yale swept the river in the Yale-Harvard Regatta. The varsity squad crossed the finish line almost 25 seconds ahead of the Crimson and broke the upstream record with a time of 18:17.5. The 1Vs were Eastern and Ivy League Champions, while the 2Vs and 3Vs were IRA national, Eastern and Ivy League champions.
 
Through it all, Gladstone has not defined success by the number of trophies or accolades won, but by the relationships built along the way.
 
Gladstone, a 1964 graduate of Syracuse University, began his career as Princeton's freshman heavyweight coach in 1966, then moved on to coach the varsity lightweights at Harvard in 1970. Gladstone had two stints at the University of California, Berkeley with a 13-year stop in between at Brown. He also served as U.S. National Team coach and U.S. Olympic Team selector, and he had a TV commentating role at two different Olympic Games.
 
Yale's current associate head coach, Mike Gennaro, who has been with the Bulldogs since 2016, will assume the role of Craig W. Johnson '68 Head Coach of Heavyweight Crew upon Gladstone's retirement in 2023.