Longtime Western Washington University Women’s Rowing coach John Fuchs announced his retirement June 20.
“I’ve been involved in the sport for 40 years,” Fuchs said. “I felt it was the right time to hang it up. I had planned on retiring before the season started.”
Western Athletics will announce Fuchs’ replacement in the coming weeks. Fuchs finished his coaching career with nine rowing national championships, including seven consecutive national titles from 2005-2011, in 2017 and in 2024.
A Fircrest native and Western graduate in 1988, Fuchs competed in men’s rowing from 1985 until graduation. After graduation, Fuchs stepped up as an assistant coach before taking the head coach role in 1999, totaling 40 years in the program and 26 seasons as the head coach.
“It’s been an incredible ride over the years, that’s for sure!” Fuchs said. “I am extremely grateful and honored to have been coaching here at Western. This is the place I always wanted to be. I have met and have been supported by so many wonderful people within Athletics and the WWU community.”
Western Washington University Athletic Director Jim Sterk said, “John was not only a national championship winning head coach, but a master at putting together an elite-level roster by finding athletic talent through a great walk-on program. He put the student-athlete first in every process of his coaching and that shows in the great number of leaders the program has turned out.”
Western was runner-up at nationals five times (2002, 2003, 2012, 2018 and 2022), third place five times (2004, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2019) and fourth in 2023.
In addition, Fuchs led the Vikings to a couple of Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships, 11 No. 1 national rankings, coached 38 All-Americans and won four Coach of the Year awards.
Fuchs helped his student-athletes succeed academically as well. In the 2023-24 season, 15 rowers earned GNAC All-Academic awards, six earned CRCA All-Academic and four earned Academic All-District.
When Fuchs built the women’s rowing program, he relied on turning walk-on student-athletes into national champions. He also aided the program by adding several state-of-the-art rowing shells to the program.
Yet, Fuchs does not take all the credit in building one of the top programs in the NCAA.
“It was nothing magical really,” Fuchs said. “I had exceptional assistant coaches who all rowed for me. We always just did our best to figure it out. Each year brought new probabilities. We spent a lot of time looking for new solutions and how we were going to make it work.”
Instead of securing a 10th NCAA championship, Fuchs will not dip his feet in the water anytime soon.
“I plan to spend more time with my wife, play more golf and tinker around the house for a while,” Fuchs said.
Fuchs will miss dominating the rowing scene and reaching the podium yearly. However, Fuchs will miss more than all the medals and trophies displayed in a case.
“I’ll mostly miss the interaction with the team,” Fuchs said. “I will always remember the sun coming up out on Lake Samish and watching the crews.”
Sterk said, “We are going to miss his guidance, but the imprint John has left on this program and WWU Athletics will be forever part of our department.”
Nick Zeller-Singh is CDN's sports reporter; reach him at nickzellersingh@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 104.
