1 March 2024

Earlier today, USRowing announced the winners of its eight Board of Directors-selected annual awards for 2023. The following individuals are being honored for their outstanding contributions to the sport of rowing. The winners are: 

USRowing Medal of Honor – Fred Schoch
Jack Kelly Award – Ron Chen
John J. Carlin Service Award – Bill Manning
Anita DeFrantz Award – Steady State Network
Isabel Bohn Award – Unity Boat Club/Athlete Without Limits
Clayton Chapman Award – Dorothy Lazor
Ernestine Bayer Award – Ellen Minzner
Man of the Year – Marc Oria

About the 2023 Board of Directors-Selected Award Winners:
 
USRowing Medal of Honor – Fred Schoch
Awarded to a member of the rowing community in the U.S. who has rendered conspicuous service to, or accomplished extraordinary feats in, rowing. It is the highest honor USRowing can bestow.
 
USRowing Medal of Honor winner Fred Schoch is a long-standing pillar of the rowing community, having led the Head of the Charles Regatta for 33 years. Schoch, a graduate of the University of Washington, stepped down as the Head of the Charles’ executive director in 2023.
 
Schoch began his rowing career at the age of 10, coxing for his father, Delos ‘Dutch’ Schoch’s, crew. Delos Schoch was an alternate for the 1936 “Boys in the Boat” Olympic crew. Fred Schoch followed in his father’s footsteps and rowed at the University of Washington, where he received a BA in English. He began his career as a teacher and rowing coach. He coached at Belmont Hill, Connecticut College, Princeton University, United States Naval Academy, Georgetown University, and for the U.S. National Team. 
 
Schoch was brought on as the first employee to run the Head of the Charles in 1990, having previously been run exclusively by volunteers. Schoch began the painstaking work of building the Head of the Charles into the world-class event it is today. In his role, he has served the larger rowing community in creating the world’s largest three-day regatta, bringing people together across disciplines, ages, and abilities.

While under his tenure, Head of the Charles grew from a one-day event to a three-day event with over 12,000 athletes from 30 countries. The event hosts over 400,000 spectators with an economic impact of more than $88 million. He managed to build the event through his advocacy with coaches, sponsors, competitors, staff, and volunteers. Schoch also pioneered the race as an inclusive event by including Para rowing events and becoming the only major event of its size to achieve full gender equity. The event has contributed over $3 million to the local community. 
 
Jack Kelly Award – Ron Chen
Awarded to an outstanding individual who represents the ideals that Jack Kelly exemplified: superior achievements in rowing, service to amateur athletics, and success in their chosen profession, thereby serving as an inspiration to American rowers.
 
This year’s Jack Kelly Award winner, Ron Chen, has had a storied rowing career both as a referee and chair of World Rowing’s Masters Commission.
 
Chen is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he received a BA in 1980. He then went to Rutgers University, where he received his J.D. He served as the Dean of Students at Rutgers Law School from 2013-2018. He serves on the ACLU National Board Executive Committee and as General Counsel of the ACLU and Chair of the Audit Committee. 
 
Chen began refereeing in 1980 and worked his first international regatta in 1987. He served as a referee at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and as vice president and board member of USRowing for nine years through the transition from Indianapolis to New Jersey. He also served as the Mid-Atlantic representative, secretary, and male VP in 2007. He currently serves as the President of the Board of the Princeton National Rowing Association and has worked with World Rowing for over 21 years, serving on the Masters Commission for 16 and being elected as chair in 2019. 
 
His involvement in the sport has been instrumental, having contributed to major events around the world. Athletes would know him from the sound of his cadence. During his time as a referee, he has developed relationships with coaches and enjoyed the camaraderie of officials. Chen has played a significant role in the rowing and referee community for over 44 years. 

John J. Carlin Service Award – Bill Manning
Awarded to honor an individual who has made significant and outstanding commitments in support of rowing.
 
This year’s John J. Carlin Service Award winner, Bill Manning, has been involved with rowing in the United States for decades.
 
Bill Manning has had an illustrious coaching career that has spanned several collegiate teams, including Princeton University, Harvard University, and LaSalle University. He coached at Harvard University from 1998 to 2013, becoming the associate head coach in 2011. His crews won Eastern Sprints, Henley Royal Regatta, IRA Championships, and the Harvard-Yale race numerous times. Manning graduated from Harvard University in 1998 with an Ed.M. in administration, planning, and social policy. 
 
Bill Manning coached multiple U.S. national team crews for the 2004 Olympics; 2004, 2005, and 2015 world championships; and the 2015 Pan American Games.
 
Manning became the high-performance coach at Penn AC, resulting in Penn AC having the most registrants in national team selection regattas/speed orders outside of the USRowing Training Center in 2023. His coaching has developed Olympians and impacted the rowing community as a whole. 

Anita DeFrantz Award – Steady State Network
Awarded to an individual or organization achieving measurable success in expanding diversity opportunities in rowing.
 
The winners of the Anita DeFrantz award, Tara Morgan and Rachel Freedman have exemplified the values of Anita DeFrantz with the Steady State Network and have done exceptional work in expanding diversity in rowing. 
 
They embody the idea that rowing should be accessible to all and be as diverse as our communities. They have used their platform and podcast to shine a light on coaches, athletes, and teams who are doing excellent work in the rowing community. They created a podcast series that addresses diversity at every level of rowing, from rower to coxswain to coach. They address issues of race, gender diversity, people with different abilities and disabilities, financial insecurity, and the challenges rowers face every day. 
 
Their creation of the Changemaker Scholarship has provided coaches of diverse minority communities with educational opportunities. The Steady State Network also has sponsored the creation of Allies with Oars that supports transgender inclusion in rowing and a Director’s Challenge Boat at the Head of the Charles 2023 to provide visibility to LGBTQ+ rowers. 
 
Their work has opened boathouse doors for athletes and coaches around the country and helped make the rowing community a safer, more accepting place for everyone. 

Isabel Bohn Award – Unity Boat Club/Athletes Without Limits
Awarded to an individual or organization achieving measurable success in expanding rowing opportunities for those with physical and intellectual disabilities.
 
Athlete Without Limits is the recipient of the Isabel Bohn Award for their work in providing access to rowing for athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Founded a decade ago, the team has diversity and inclusion built into its DNA. 
 
While based in Washington, D.C., the program has rowers and coaches across the country and has even been emulated internationally. The Athletes Without Limits team was created by Patrick Johnson, who envisioned a team where everyone had a safe, supportive, and inclusive place to learn and enjoy the sport of rowing.
 
Athletes Without Limits’ central mission is to provide opportunities and support for rowers with intellectual and developmental disabilities to reach their highest level of rowing. The team uses rowing to help recovering veterans and service members. At the high school level, the program has worked with some of the least advantaged schools in the D.C. Metro area to bring special education students into their high school teams and onto the team. They also have created volunteer and peer mentorship programs for high school students. 
 
The Athletes Without Limits model has been used to great success by other programs across the country, and it has helped make rowing a more diverse community. AWL rowers have medaled at the highest levels of competition, including the Paralympics, world championships, Global Games, and national championships. Their program has shown how accessible rowing can be to any community. 
 
Clayton Chapman Award – Dorothy Lazor
Awarded to an outstanding individual who emulates Clayton Chapman’s 30-year stewardship of the Eastern Sprints and IRA Championships. This person will have consistently served behind the scenes in unrecognized, but important roles, in staging a regatta.
 
Dorothy Lazor has served the rowing community for years as a licensed referee and president of the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (VASRA). For her monumental impact on rowers in Virginia, Lazor has been named this year’s recipient of the Clayton W. Chapman Award.
 
Lazor became the VASRA president and regatta director in October 2014, after serving as vice president for two years. VASRA has overseen scholastic rowing in Northern Virginia and has been running regattas on the Occoquan River since 1979. Lazor serves as regatta director for all VASRA-run regattas and supports additional collegiate regattas on the Occoquan River. Lazor is instrumental in the maintenance of the Occoquan racecourse, which includes a fully-buoyed course, start platform and tower, aligners platform, stake boats, finish line tower, and four docks.

Prior to becoming president of VASRA, Lazor served as a member of the Hylton High School Booster Board for nine years, including as vice president for four and president for one. She was on the Prince William Crew Association Board, which manages the Oxford Boathouse, for 13 years, including four years as the treasurer of that organization. She also was director of Prince William Crew Association Rowing Programs (summer and fall) for two years. 
 
Her work at the Occoquan has made the Virginia area a great place to compete for high school and collegiate athletes. 

Ernestine Bayer Award – Ellen Minzner
Awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions to women’s rowing and/or to an outstanding woman in rowing.
 
Ellen Minzner is a highly respected and appreciated coach for rowers of all ages and abilities. Minzner’s tireless work to promote Para and adaptive rowing across the country has exemplified the belief that rowing is for everyone.
 
Minzner is a pioneer of Para rowing in the United States. She worked at Community Rowing Inc. for more than 10 years as the director of I\inclusion and advocacy, where she and her team of coaches and staff pioneered a model for serving people with disabilities, military veterans, and underserved youth that has become a national standard. She graduated from Villanova with a BA in communications. Minzner was a member of the national team and won gold in the lightweight double at the world championships in 1995 and 1996. 
 
Minzner has overseen the Para national team since 2019 as the USRowing Para High Performance Director. Her leadership has grown the Para team and resulted in great success at competition including two medals in the PR3 double and the PR3 four with coxswain at the 2023 World Rowing Championships and a silver medal in the PR3 four with coxswain at both the 2016 and 2021 Paralympics. 
 
Minzner is the co-chair of the Head of the Charles Announcing Committee. Her work led to the inclusion of Para events at the Head of the Charles, and the trophy given to the winner of the LTA four with coxswain was renamed the Ellen Minzner Trophy in 2021.

Man of the Year – Marc Oria
Awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions to men’s rowing and/or to an outstanding man in rowing.
 
As the coach of the U.S. coastal rowing team, Marc Oria has been instrumental in the growth of coastal rowing and the success of its crews. Oria has been able to take rowers accustomed to flat water and help them embrace the challenges and opportunities of coastal rowing at the highest level. Oria started Next Level Rowing in 2021 to support athletes who are training in both coastal and flatwater rowing.

His expertise as a coach training athletes in both disciplines has been recognized by coaches around the world. All athletes representing the U.S. at the 2023 World Rowing Beach Sprints Finals were coached by Oria. A great example of his ability to train and coach both flatwater and coastal, Oria trained Annelise Hahl, who represented the U.S. in 2023 in the U19 single in flatwater and in multiple U19 boats in beach sprints.
 
Oria competed for Spain as a lightweight rower at the U23 and senior level. Oria has been a coach and educator since 1999, having been the head coach at Reial Club Maritim Barcelona in Spain. He coached the Catalunya national team in 2006 with several of his athletes medaling at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships and the World Rowing Championships. He has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and is an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati.