Stanford Rowers Allege Years of Abuse by Coaches

“I would rather kill myself than row another year here.”

Current and former members of Stanford’s men’s rowing team say head coach Ted Sobolewski and associate head coach John Pojednic, at Stanford since 2019 and 2023, have built a program defined by physical and psychological abuse. They describe scholarship promises made during recruiting and quietly dropped once athletes arrived, as well as a culture that punishes anyone who questions how the team is run.

In conversations with current rowers and on-the-record interviews with several former athletes who left the program, the Review found that at least three current rowers have contemplated suicide, and three were pressured to do a maximal 2km test on the ergometer while sick with pneumonia. The senior class, which once held 9 recruited rowers, is now down to 2, with 3 more rowers leaving the program this academic year and 3 the year before. There are currently 14 recruited rowers and coxswains walking around campus rather than rowing for the team.