Heavyweight Rowing
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
- Email:
- mmcrotty@princeton.edu
- Phone:
- 609-258-5179
During his time as head coach, Crotty led the Tigers to IRA National Championships and Eastern Sprints titles in 2023 and 2010. In total, the Tigers won eight medals, including five golds, at IRAs under Crotty along with 12 medals, including four golds, at Eastern Sprints.
2023 was a stellar year for Crotty and the Tigers as he guided the team to an IRA National Championship along with the IRA President's Cup, an Ivy League Championship and a championship at Eastern Sprints. The Tigers' 1V and 2V were victorious in their Grand Finals at IRAs and Eastern Sprints, as Princeton finished the season with an 11-1 overall record and a 5-1 record in Ivy competition.
Princeton finished fourth at IRAs in 2025, with the 1V and 2V both making it to Grand Finals. At Eastern Sprints, Crotty led the Tigers to a second-place finish with the 3V winning silver and the 1V bronze. Princeton retained the Murtaugh Cup over Navy, the Wood-Hammond Cup, the Campbell Cup over Columbia and the Diamond Challenge Trophy over Dartmouth.
2024 was another strong season for the Tigers under Crotty. Princeton finished third at IRAs, with the 1V winning silver. At Eastern Sprints, Princeton's 1V and 2V won bronze as the Tigers finished fourth in the team standings.
The Tigers had four All-Americans in 2022 as they retained the Fosburgh Cup at Georgetown and the Campbell Cup at Columbia along with victories over Mercyhurst, MIT, Delaware and Dartmouth. The varsity eight was also fourth at Easterns and sixth at IRA National Championships.
Princeton secured two medals at the 2021 IRA Championships as the V8 secured a bronze and the 2V8 collecting a silver. The Tigers had three All-Americans in Marcus Jonas, Sydney Edwards and David Slear.
The 2020 spring season was cancelled due to the coronavirus.
In 2019, the Tigers earned a silver medal at the IRA Championships as the V8 unit lost to Cornell by .4 seconds. The Big Red jumped out to an early lead, clearing the field, but Princeton remained within striking distance, just a full length behind. As the boats got closer to the finish line, the Tigers made strong push, clearing a pack of four boats, but just short of Cornell. The Tigers' back-to-back medals are the first time the program has done that since 2009-10 when they won the V8 race both years.
Crotty, who led the Princeton to both an EARC and IRA national championship in his debut season as head coach (2010), guided the Tigers to silver medals at both the Eastern Sprints and the IRA national championships in 2018. Those efforts followed a season in which the Tiger lightweights broke the Lake Carnegie course record in winning the Platt Cup, and also claimed the top four races during the HYP regatta to win both the Goldthwait & Vogel Cups.
The highlights from last season weren't limited to the spring. Princeton won the 2017 Head of the Charles in the fall, a sign of things to come during the academic year, and then the Tigers went to the Henley Royal Regatta and reached the Temple Cup quarterfinals before falling to IRA heavyweight champion Yale.
Over the last six times it was held, Princeton returned to the medal dock at Eastern Sprints four times; it also added a 2016 IRA bronze to the silver it won last spring.
Two of Crotty's former rowers (Robin Prendes '10 and Tyler Nase '13) built on their Princeton success by competing in the USA ML4- at the 2016 Summer Olympics, as well as both the 2014 and 2015 Senior World Championships.
Crotty, who had been the heavyweight assistant coach at Princeton, replaced Greg Hughes, who led the 2009 men’s lightweights to an EARC, IRA and Henley national championship before being named head coach of the Princeton heavyweight crew. Ironically, Crotty began his coaching career at Princeton by replacing Hughes, who went from the heavyweight assistant to the lightweight head coach prior to the 2006 season.Crotty, who rowed and then coached under longtime heavyweight head coach Curtis Jordan, was a perfect 4-for-4 in leading the heavyweight novice eight to the EARC grand final and had two teams finish on the medal stand. His top finish came in 2008, when the Tigers placed second to Harvard in the Eastern grand final. Princeton had lost to Harvard during the regular season as well.
Crotty served as the head coach for the U.S. Men’s Junior National Team in both 2005 and 2006 and served as the assistant junior world championship coach in 2007. He has been coaching crew since he completed his post-graduate studies at Oxford in 1999; he began with a three-year stint at the Loyola Academy Rowing Association in Wilmette, Ill., and in 2003 he moved to West Windsor, N.J., where he coached the Mercer Junior Rowing Club. His varsity eight won the 2004 and 2005 Northeast Junior Regional championships.
A 1998 graduate with a degree in American history, Crotty rowed on several international crews, including the silver medalist U.S. 4- at the 1999 Pan American Games and the silver medalist U.S. Under-23 8+ World Championship squad.
His collegiate rowing career offered Crotty the chance to compete in the biggest competitions in both the United States and Europe. At Princeton, he was part of two IRA national championship teams and an Eastern Sprint champion (1997). He went on to compete for the Oxford Blue Boat in the 145th Boat Race against Cambridge University.
Crotty has extensive administrative experience, including a two-year term as the executive director of the Princeton International Regatta Association and a two-year term as the Co-Director for the Annual Fund at Loyola Academy. He served as the class president for the Princeton Class of 1998, a position into which he was elected by his classmates, from 2003 through 2008.
| Year | Overall | Ivy | EARCs | IRAs |
| 2010 | 7-1 | 4-1 | 1st | 1st |
| 2011 | 8-1 | 4-1 | 4th | 5th |
| 2012 | 5-4 | 3-2 | 3rd | 6th |
| 2013 | 6-3 | 2-3 | 5th | 6th |
| 2014 | 7-3 | 3-3 | 3rd | 5th |
| 2015 | 8-3 | 3-3 | 3rd | 4th |
| 2016 | 8-2 | 4-2 | 3rd | 3rd |
| 2017 | 6-4 | 3-3 | 5th | 5th |
| 2018 | 10-1 | 5-1 | 2nd | 2nd |
| 2019 | 10-1 | 5-1 | 4th | 2nd |
| 2021 | 1-0 | N/A | N/A | 3rd |
| 2022 | 7-5 | 3-3 | 5th | 6th |
| 2023 | 11-1 | 5-1 | 1st | 1st |
| 2024 | 6-2 | 4-2 | 4th | 3rd |
| 2025 | 5-2-1 | 3-2-1 | 2nd | 4th |
| Totals | 105-33-1 | 51-28-1 | 12 medals (4 gold) | 8 medals (5 gold) |
