Costa Mesa : Orange Coast College Rowing Coach Bows Out

David Grant, dean of students at Orange Coast College, said Wednesday that he will not return to his auxiliary duties as the community college’s crew coach this fall.

“I’m taking a little sabbatical from rowing,” Grant said. “We have a new president (Donald Bronsard), and as a dean I need to spend this first year with him, giving him all the time I have.”

Grant, who has coached Orange Coast’s record-setting crews since 1963, said he hopes to return to that additional responsibility in the fall of 1986. “I love rowing, and I don’t want to give it up,” he said. “Also, I think it’s very good for administrators also to teach or to coach, so that they can stay closer to the students.”

Grant’s rowing teams at Orange Coast have won numerous national and international competitions during the past 22 years. The college’s crew, under his leadership, has been invited six times to row in the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta in England.

Orange Coast’s crew also was the first U.S. team to be invited to mainland China for exhibitions and competitions. The team returned from that visit earlier this year .

The U.S. Olympic Committee last year tapped Grant to be the assistant coach of the U.S. rowing team.

Grant said two Orange Coast crew alumni will be coaching rowing at the college this fall. He said they are Lee Miller and Pat Gleason, both graduates of the University of Washington in Seattle.