Mayrene Earle Named 2011 Ernestine Bayer Award Winner

November 18, 2011

PRINCETON, N.J. – MastersCoaching founder Mayrene Earle has been named the recipient of 2011 Ernestine Bayer Award, USRowing announced Friday.

Formerly known as the Women of the Year Award, the Ernestine Bayer Award is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to women’s rowing and/or to an outstanding woman in rowing and is selected by the female members of USRowing Board of Directors. Earle will be honored at the USRowing Annual Convention in Hartford, Conn.

“It’s quite an honor and I’m very overwhelmed,” said Earle. “I met (Bayer) at the first camp run by Holly Metcalf. I idolized her from the get go when she ran past me up the stairs at the age of 80.  

“I’d like to think that I’ve contributed a lot to women’s rowing in the 30 to 40 years I’ve been doing it, particularly since I started this master’s coaching group,” she said. “Coaching for masters women isn’t a high priority on most coach’s lists in club programs, so they come to me for a little extra coaching. I’d like to think that I’m making a huge difference in their lives on the water as well as off the water.”

Known as the “Mother of Women’s Rowing,” Ernestine Bayer was a pioneer in the sport. She pushed to be allowed to row on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and eventually was taught by her husband Ernie Bayer how to row. She established the first women’s rowing club, the Philadelphia Girl’s Rowing Club.

Bayer rowed and competed into her nineties. She died at the age of 97 in 2006.
She was the first woman named to the National Rowing Foundation's Hall of Fame, the first woman to receive the USRowing Medal and the first woman to win USRowing's John J. Carlin Award for service to the sport. She was also nominated for the Sullivan Award, given annually to the top U.S. amateur athlete.
 
Earle, a resident of Brewster, Mass., began coaching in1974 at Wellesley College where she coached varsity and novice women's crew in addition to women's basketball. She was also a physical education instructor. Following her time at Wellesley, Earle coached at Northeastern University fro 1979 to 1981 before moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1983 to 1988 where was both an assistant professor and head women’s coach.

Between 1998 and 2003, Earle worked in the Provincetown Public School system as a health and physical education teacher. During her time as a collegiate coach, Earle’s teams have reached the grand finals at the NCAA championships, were crowned conference champions four times and won four points trophies at the New 8 Regatta and reached the grand finals at the Collegiate Nationals.

Earle, 60, founded MastersCoaching in 2002 and began holding three and four day sweep rowing clinics for master rowers at venues around the world and has led her rowers to gold medals at masters world and national championships and to the podium at the Head of The Charles Regatta.

“I know many of the women have nominated me in the past and having your peers or the people that you coached express that they appreciate what you do means everything,” she said.

For more information about the USRowing Annual Convention and awards reception, visit www.usrowing.org.

USRowing is a nonprofit organization recognized by the United States Olympic Committee as the governing body for the sport of rowing in the United States. USRowing’s official suppliers include Boathouse Sports, Vespoli, Win Tech, Filippi, Croker Oars, Rudy Project, Concept2, Nielsen Kellerman, PowerHTV and Ludus Tours. USRowing also receives generous support from the National Rowing Foundation and its corporate sponsors, ANXeBusiness Corp and Voxer. For more information, visit www.usrowing.org. USRowing has created compelling programs to engage sponsors leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games, with proceeds going to help ensure the U.S. team’s success. Opportunities also exist to partner with America Rows – supporting diversity initiatives and adaptive programs. For more information, please contact Beth Kohl at beth@usrowing.org.

Ed Moran

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