High Performance

Coach's Update: 2024 Winter Speed Order & Olympic Selection Camp
Coach's Update: 2023 Fall Speed Order
Coach's Update: 2023 Pan American Games
Coach’s Update: 2023 World Rowing Championships

Penn AC High Performance Group strives to train and develop elite level men and women by providing them with opportunities to compete at the highest level in the sport of rowing. Penn AC has a long history of producing national team rowers and scullers that have competed at the World Rowing Championships and Olympic Games. Penn AC will continue to maintain this tradition of success.

Penn AC is a member of the Schuylkill Navy which is located on historical Boathouse Row in Philadelphia, PA. The High Performance Team trains along the Schuylkill River, which has been the breeding ground for much of America’s past Olympic Rowing success. Penn AC athletes train year–round and travel to compete at US Rowing Regattas, Senior National Team Trials, and National Selection Regattas and Camps. Philadelphia provides these athletes with excellent opportunities to pursue full or part–time careers or attend graduate school programs at many of the local colleges or universities.

Success of the Penn AC High Performance Group stems from the endless dedication to practicing, training, and racing each day with teammates who are all working towards one goal: competing for the US National Team. Penn AC will provide you with a team atmosphere and level of competition that you will not find anywhere else. We are one team, one club.

As a condition for consideration for the HPG team, all athletes must compelete the HPG Code of Conduct Contract/Agreement.

Height Standards

Men: 6'1" and taller
Women: 5'8" and taller

Coaches

Head Coach: Bill Manning
Bill Manning joined Penn AC as Head Coach of High Performance in February, 2022. In his first season with the club two athletes earned selection to the senior national team and he coached the M2x at the FISA Rowing World Championships. The M2x won the “B” Final for the best finish in this event for the USA since 2004.

In his second year four Penn AC athletes made the senior national team for the 2023 FISA World Rowing Championships, and he coached the M2- to fifth-place and Olympic Qualification. Manning also assisted with the M4x that earned a ninth-place finish at the world championships. In October, 2023 he coached the W2- (Gold), W4- (Silver), W8+ (Silver), LW2x (Silver), and Mixed 8+ (Gold) at the 2023 Pan American Games. Seven of the twenty rowers/scullers on Team USA came from the Penn AC High Performance Group.

Manning successfully coached international crews for Team USA prior to joining Penn AC. In 2019, his U23 LM4x finished fourth at the World Championships. In 2018 he served as Team USA’s Head Coach at the Youth Olympic Games. He also coached the U19 women’s squad that won two bronze medals at the FISA Rowing World Championships. In 2015, he led the LM2- to a fifth-place finish at the Senior World Championships—the best performance in the event by the US in more than a decade. That same summer, his LM4- won silver, his M2- took bronze, and he co-coached the bronze medal-winning M8+ at the Pan American Games.

In 2003-04, Manning coached the senior national and Olympic teams. He helped the M2- to Olympic qualification in 2003, and at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, he assisted with the M2-, M2x, and LM2x. During 2006 and 2007 he directed the USA U23 Men's Sculling program.

Before joining Penn AC, Manning served as Assistant Coach for Lori Dauphiny and the Princeton Women’s rowing program for two years and also enjoyed six successful seasons with Princeton’s Lightweight Men. Highlights from his time with the Tiger Lights include silver medals for Princeton at the 2018 and 2019 IRA National Championships, winning the Harvard/Yale/Princeton Regatta four times, winning the Eastern Sprints with 3V and 4V in 2016 and 2018, and medaling at the IRAs with the LM4- and LM4+ for three consecutive years, including a national championship in 2015.

Prior to arriving at Princeton, Manning was Associate Head Coach under Harry Parker at Harvard University. In both 2012 and 2013 Harvard won the Rowe Cup at the Eastern Sprints and swept Yale at the Harvard-Yale race. The first varsity also won the Eastern Sprints and Ivy League Championship in 2013. Additionally, they medaled at the IRA Championships (bronze in 2012, silver in 2013). At the Henley Royal Regatta, Harvard’s crews won the Prince Albert Cup (2011), Ladies’ Challenge Plate (2012) and Visitor’s Challenge Cup (2013). In both 2001 and 2002 Manning’s crews won the Temple Challenge Cup at Henley.

Manning began his career at Harvard as Parker’s Freshman Coach, winning Eastern Sprints medals in twelve of his thirteen years, including seven victories. The freshman also raced at the IRAs from 2003-11 winning three silvers and three bronzes. Manning's first freshman crew did not lose a dual race in his final five seasons; a record that includes defeating 35 opponents without a loss between 2007-11. The freshmen also defeated Yale in “The Race” in eleven of Manning's thirteen years. In 2004, he took Harvard to the Lucerne World Cup where they raced as USA2, defeating the British and French Olympic crews and making the A Final.

Bill can be contacted via email at wjhmanning@gmail.com