Head Coach Tessa Spillane 
Email Coach Spillane
B.A., Mount Holyoke College
M.S., Smith College
5th season of coaching at Wellesley
Tessa Spillane enters her fifth season at the helm of Wellesley’s highly successful crew program. In 2008-09 Spillane led the Blue to a fifth place regional ranking in New England and a tenth place national ranking. During the 2007-08 season, Spillane guided the Blue to their first capture of the Florence Jope Smith Cup for the highest team point total at the NEWMAC Championship. Spillane was named NEWMAC Coach of the Year in 2008.
Spillane came to Wellesley from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon where she served as the Head Coach of Men’s and Women’s Rowing from 2001 to 2005. Spillane was named Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference Women’s Coach of the Year in 2004.
Prior to Lewis and Clark College, Spillane served as the novice coach and varsity assistant coach at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. While at Mount Holyoke, Spillane founded a community based rowing program and served as the director and founding coach of Rowing Strong, Rowing Together, serving at-risk, urban youth. Spillane also coached master’s women for eleven years as a member of the Row as One coaching staff.
Spillane currently serves as the DII/DIII At-Large Representative to the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Board of Directors. She chairs the Membership Committee and the DII/DIII Awards Selection Committee. Spillane was recently selected to serve on the NCAA DIII Rowing Committee, representing the New England Region. Her three-year term begins in September 2009. Previously, Spillane served on the Board of Directors for USRowing, the national governing body for the sport of rowing in the United States.
Spillane is an Assistant Professor of Physical Education at Wellesley and teaches in the required physical education program. Certified as a USRowing Level III coach in 1998, Spillane is also a graduate of the NCAA Women Coaches Academy (Indianapolis, 2007).
Spillane holds a Bachelors degree from Mount Holyoke College where she was a NEWMAC All-Conference athlete and captain. She also holds a Masters in Exercise and Sport Studies from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.