‘I Love the Water, I Love the Team, and I Love the Challenge’

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A powerful Big Red rower as an undergrad, Todd Kennett ’91 is the program’s longtime director and men’s heavyweight coach

By Melissa Newcomb

When Todd Kennett ’91 received a recruiting letter from Big Red rowing before matriculating on the Hill, he tossed it. A baseball and soccer player who had never rowed, he had no interest in the sport.

Back then—at a time when there were relatively few rowing opportunities at the high school level—it was common for collegiate programs to recruit students who were tall and athletic, but had little or no rowing experience.

After Kennett arrived on campus, he and his freshman roommate were standing in a registration line when they were approached by some rowing coaches. The next thing he knew, his roommate was volunteering him as a potential recruit.

Kennett wound up joining the team. And more than three decades later, he’s still in the boathouse—as the longtime director of rowing and men’s heavyweight coach, leading a program built around commitment and grit.

“I love the water, I love the team, and I love the challenge of the sport,” says the CALS alum. “It’s about toughness and how hard you can push yourself. Couple that with the weather when you’re on the water in March and it’s really cold, snowing, or raining—it’s moral-fiber building.”

It’s about toughness and how hard you can push yourself. Couple that with the weather when you’re on the water in March and it’s really cold, snowing, or raining—it’s moral-fiber building.

Since joining the rowing staff in 1992, Kennett has coached at every level: women’s novice and varsity, men’s freshman and varsity lightweight, and men’s freshman and varsity heavyweight.

He led the lightweight team to three consecutive national championships from 2006–08, making Cornell the only men’s program in history to achieve that feat; in 2006 and 2008, the Eastern Association of Rowing Coaches (EARC) named him Lightweight Coach of the Year.

After assuming the directorship and taking over the heavyweight program in summer 2008, Kennett guided the Big Red to 10 Eastern Sprints medals and three medals at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship.

His varsity boats have also won 20 cup races, including the Madeira Cup against Penn in 12 of the last 14 seasons that the race was held. He again won Coach of the Year honors from the EARC in 2010.

But Kennett’s impact stretches far beyond race results, with current and former rowers crediting him with shaping their characters and futures on and off the water.

Many athletes have gone on to become coaches themselves, either as assistants on his staff or at programs across the country—including Ivy lightweight head coaches Billy Boyce ’08 (Harvard) and Colin Farrell ’05 (Penn).

Since joining the rowing staff in 1992, Kennett has coached at every level: women’s novice and varsity, men’s freshman and varsity lightweight, and men’s freshman and varsity heavyweight.

The program has also produced Olympians, such as 2024 Paris gold medalist Mike Grady ’19 and Alex Karwoski ’12, who came in fourth in Rio in 2016.

“Todd taught me that how you do anything is how you do everything,” says Karwoski, who coached alongside Kennett after returning from Rio. “If you’re not taking care of yourself, your schoolwork, or your relationships with the people closest to you, you can’t come down to the boathouse and expect rowing to be the priority.”

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As a student athlete, Kennett rowed in the top freshman boat his first year before joining the varsity boat for the next three seasons.

His senior year, the squad finished third at the IRA Regatta and Kennett received the Butler Memorial Trophy, given by his teammates for outstanding leadership and athletic performance.

He competed in U.S. Rowing’s Olympic development and pre-elite camps from 1989–91 and finished in the top three at two U.S. Olympic Festivals (events that were formerly held in the years between official Games).

“Rowing changed me immensely,” Kennett observes. “I was a dorky farm kid, and it matured me and gave me confidence.”

An animal science major from Middlebury, CT, Kennett had long planned to follow his father into veterinary practice.

But when Anita Brenner ’87, then the women’s rowing coach at Ithaca College, offered him a job as an assistant after graduation, he took it—and got hooked on coaching. That same year, he also served as a volunteer assistant for the Big Red, and has been coaching on the Hill ever since.

Todd taught me that how you do anything is how you do everything.

Alex Karwoski ’12

“You’re on the water at some crazy hours in crazy conditions—and as a coach, you have to explain to others why we’re doing that and get them to buy in,” Kennett notes, adding: “There's no greater compliment than having guys I’ve coached come back to campus and see me.”

Rowers—and Kennett himself—describe his style as strict but caring, with high expectations.

For example: when the Big Red was slated to race at a U.S. Naval Academy course known for choppy water, Kennett had the team train in heavy rain and wind for weeks.

“He’s demanding, but when you have a coach that also follows those expectations himself, it’s easy to take advice from and trust somebody who has devoted their life to the sport,” says current heavyweight captain Constantino Oberto ’27. “He really cares about all of the rowers—about what our aspirations are and what we want to do with our lives.”

Oberto, an ILR student, was among the rowers who trained for the event against Navy. When the team got to Annapolis, the water actually proved to be calm—but the Big Red was so thoroughly prepared, it won all four varsity races.

“When you’re rowing, you don’t think about all the strokes you still have to take; you think about one at a time,” says Kennett. “I hope my athletes have that same attitude in life.”

Top: Kennett during a men's heavyweight practice. (Eldon Lindsay / Cornell Athletics)

Published May 27, 2026

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