Casey Galvanek is more than just a high school coach

Winning, in sports, is the easiest thing to define. It is completely binary: a team or player, either wins or loses. In a race, only one entity can finish first. There is no in between. 

There are stats of course, to track individual success. A basketball player might average 20 points per game despite playing on a poor team or a softball pitcher could have a low ERA, but a poor win-loss record due to a lack of run support. 

This isn’t to mention the aspects of sport that are perhaps the most fundamental to what athletics are all about — the heart, hustle and character that athletes display on the playing field, especially in the face of adversity. There is so much that can be learned about ourselves and one another through sports that goes beyond the box score. 

And yet, that record remains. Did a team win or lose? Did it finish first or somewhere else in the race? There is a finality to it that cements sport as a forum for competition and not just participation. 

It’s funny then that Casey Galvanek, Head Coach and President of Sarasota Crew, who coached the U.S. Olympic men’s four boat to a gold medal win in Paris this past summer, defines winning differently — at least when coaching at the youth level.

“I tell the kids what you define as winning is wholly different from what I define as winning,” said Galvanek, who was named the 2024 Rowing News Coach of the Year. “When you leave here a better person, that’s me winning. When you win a gold medal, that’s you winning.”

While Galvanek takes a different approach to coaching Olympic athletes for Team USA — after all, elite, adult rowers are different from even a high-level high school rower much less a novice — he still delineates the separation between his personal success and that of the team. 

When the U.S. men’s four boat won gold in Paris with a time of 5:49.03, placing itself atop the podium in the event for the first time since 1960 and edging out second-place New Zealand by 0.85 of a second, Galvanek didn’t receive a medal. It’s not customary for the International Olympic Committee to recognize coaches for medal-winning performances at the Games. 

What he got — along with receiving the Order of Ikkos from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, a recognition of medal-winning coaches from the athletes — was the relief and satisfaction that he got the most out of his athletes. 

'Just a high school coach'

Galvanek’s path to guiding the men’s four boat to gold started back in early 2023, when the boat’s crew of Olympic veterans — Liam Corrigan, Michael Grady, Justin Best and Nick Mead — was originally formed. Although Galvanek had Olympic coaching experience, his time with this particular boat got off to a rocky start. 

Galvanek was familiar with the rowers. He coached three of them as members of the Junior National team, but familiarity didn’t gain him any leverage with the boat. If anything, it was a roadblock. 

“If you have any background with an athlete from when they were a kid, they still consider you to be a kids coach,” said Galvanek. “I’d known them, but it’s a hard boundary. They want to row for their coaching heroes, the guys who’ve had books written about them and then you have me, who they know from the Junior National team and Sarasota Crew.”

While Galvanek and his boat initially butted heads, there was a common understanding between them: Galvanek knew that the group had the capacity to win medals, it was a matter of making the changes in training and technique to get them there. 

The boat’s potential began to show in September of 2023, when it took silver in the 2023 World Rowing Championships, finishing with a time of 6:06.37, a scant two seconds behind Great Britain’s time of 6:04.35. Winning silver secured the boat a place in the 2024 Olympic Games, but not that of the crew within the boat. 

A decision about the boat had to be made: USRowing selection camp, which could appoint four entirely new rowers to the boat, was set for March 2024. 

The crew went to Josy Verdonkschot, USRowing’s Chief High Performance Officer, and asked what it would take to keep the boat together. 

“After they’d asked him, my boss came to me and said ‘Do you think that they can make up the two seconds on the Brits with the same boat?’”said Galvanek. “I told him that I think we can make up the two seconds and the 1% of additional speed in the Olympic year, because everyone peaks for the Olympics. Their training volume goes up, their physicality goes up and their speed increases.”

For a boat to win gold at the Olympics, Galvanek said, almost everything has to go perfectly during the race while things don’t go perfectly for the other boats. The gap in speed between boats is almost non-existent, making the margin for error microscopic. 

A missed stroke, an incorrect transfer of weight, a wrong move in the steering of the boat can take a crew off the podium in the blink of an eye. 

In the end, however, the men's four stayed perfect, outlasting a late surge from New Zealand to clinch gold. For Galvanek, the victory was a mix of jubilation and relief. 

Not only does winning a gold medal do wonders for USRowing by increasing funding and exposure for the next generation of athletes, but it fulfilled what Galvanek characterizes as one of his ultimate responsibilities as a coach. 

Years prior, Galvanek had heard from a former promising rower about an experience some of the rowers had on the 2016 Olympic team, which failed to medal. 

The rower told Galvanek the crew had said their experience was just “okay” and was part of the reason that he’d never tried to make an Olympic team himself. It was a piece of information that still haunts Galvanek. 

“These athletes have to look back on the last three to four years and say, ‘was this adventure worth it?’” said Galvanek. “An incredible responsibility that I have as a coach is that I’m not going to do anything that makes one of these athletes on any level, be it high school, collegiate or international, communicate to the next generation that it was just okay. They’re choosing to give up their lives and you have to give them what they need to be successful on this path, so that the next generation can also have a positive experience.”