Phil Marshall Named Row Ontario High Performance Director
Row Ontario announced on Tuesday that they have named Phil Marshall as the new High Performance Director for the organization.
Marshall, who coached the bronze medal-winning Canadian women’s pair of Caileigh Filmer and Hillary Janssens at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, began his role as High Performance Director with Row Ontario on Monday, Aug. 1.
“We are ecstatic to announce the hiring of Phil Marshall as High Performance Director today,” said Andrew Backer, CEO of Row Ontario. “Phil has a tremendous amount of experience in high performance rowing, and we are excited to have one of the top rowing minds in the country join our team. I have no doubt he will elevate our high performance program to new heights and we are all looking forward to seeing its growth in the years to come.”
Marshall recently stepped down from his role as RCA’s Head Coach of National Team Programs and has over 30 years of high performance rowing experience, which started at his hometown Brockville Rowing Club. He’s coached at many different levels during his career including the club, university, provincial and national levels. At the university level, Marshall was an assistant coach on an OUA Championship winning team at Western in the late ’1990s before heading south of the border. At Syracuse University of the NCAA, he was the freshmen men’s rowing coach and recruitment coordinator, implementing in-season and off-season training programs that focused on technique and student athlete well-being. He was also the first full-time head coach at Queen’s University (2016-18), where he helped lead the Gaels to six medals (5 gold, 1 bronze).
At the provincial level, Marshall developed and managed Ontario’s rowers in advance of the Canada Games and National Rowing Championship, in addition to organizing a talent identification and selection process for both athletes and coaches. He is also a former senior lead coach at the National Development Centre – Ontario and head coach of the national U23 lightweight men’s team. After coaching with the Olympic women’s team in 2016, Marshall was hired in a full-time senior coaching role with the women’s national team by Rowing Canada Aviron in 2018. Marshall will continue to be based from his home in Mill Bay, BC for the foreseeable future.
“I am thankful to Andrew and the team at Row Ontario for the opportunity to work in the High Performance Director capacity and I am very much looking forward to getting started,” said Marshall. “Ontario has consistently developed a strong pool of athletes and coaches and I am excited to contribute to their continued success.”
In addition to the hiring of Marshall, Row Ontario also announced several internal staffing changes and shifting of roles within the organization. Chris Marshall will be leaving his role as Director of Rowing as of Sept. 1 and will be relocating to Welland to take on the role as Row Ontario’s Provincial Coach working in the centralized environment of the Ontario NextGen Performance Centre. In addition to his role as Provincial Coach, Chris Marshall will also have the responsibility of being the ONGPC Operations Manager.
Will Mulcahy is remaining in a coaching capacity taking on the role of Ontario Regional Coach and will resume his duties of leading the ONGPC’s regional program. In addition to his coaching role, Mulcahy will also be taking on the role of High Performance Coordinator. Grant Boyd, who was hired as Row Ontario’s High Performance Manager in January, will be taking on the role of Domestic Rowing Manager. Boyd will be overseeing Row Ontario’s Coach Development, Competitions, Umpire Development and Growing Rowing Initiatives as part of the new role. He will continue to serve as Team Manager of the Ontario rowing team at the 2022 Canada Summer Games and will be assuming the Domestic Rowing Manager role as of Sept. 1.
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