Harriet “Holly” Metcalf

Inducted: 2004

Harriet M. “Holly” Metcalf won a gold medal in rowing in the eight-oars with coxswain at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. Holly, a Rhode Island native, attended Mt. Holyoke College and holds an advanced degree from Harvard University. She has been involved with rowing for three decades. Holly was a six-time national Olympic team member and won three silver and one bronze world championship medals, in addition to her Olympic gold. She coached the U.S. national team to a silver medal at the 1990 world championships.

In 1993, Holly founded the Row As One Institute, initially designed to train women masters athletes and later expanded to reach inner city youth in the Boston area where she now resides. As director of Row As One, she founded G-ROW Boston, a rowing program for girls in the Boston public schools. G-ROW, which also incorporates academics and relationship-building, is now a program of Community Rowing, Inc.She also founded WeCanRow (Women Enduring Cancer Row), a program for women breast cancer survivors. In 2003, she was a panelist at the National Gay and Lesbian Athletics Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a panel of LGBT Olympians that also included swimmer Mark Tewksbury and high jumper Brian Marshall.

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