Cory Conzemius, the men’s and women’s head rowing coach has only been at OCU since the Fall of 2021 but has already made strides for himself. Conzemius was asked to lead the United States in the World University Games where both Men’s and Women’s teams garnered awards.
The men’s 8+ and women’s 2 were both able to bring home bronze medals while the women’s 2X took silver and the women’s 4X were able to grab gold.
Conzemius spoke highly of the experience, saying that it was, “an experience I’ll always remember.” He said, “it’s not too often you have the opportunity to go and represent your country at such a high-level international event, especially as a college student.”
He explained that there were no OCU rowers present, but that he would pull from this experience when it comes to his coaching back here in Oklahoma. “Coaching other athletes, you always have the opportunity to see how a different athlete can respond to your coaching, what other coaches are doing within their programs, and you take that with you and get to becoming a better coach yourself,” he said.
Conzemius said, “it was just a phenomenal experience … it really is like the Olympics for college students.” He continued this by saying, “our rowing team was actually at the front of Team USA, right behind the flag, as we were walking into the stadium behind Ukraine.”
“Just to walk into a stadium with everyone cheering and everything, I was like ‘oh yeah this really is like the Olympics right now,” he said.
He pointed to a specific moment within one of the races that he thought was really special, explaining that Italy was the world champion in the EU 23 four and that many of the rowers from that squad competed against the US.
“We had actually gotten off the line faster than them, so we were in the lead, and I was like ‘Oh, we’re beating Italy,” he said.
Conzemius also explained a little bit about the OCU rowing team under his tenure, speaking on how the team has grown he said, “when I started, we had eight guys and two girls, and this fall we’re looking to be at five on the women’s side and we should be at twenty-one on the men’s side.”
“We’ve had good growth just on the team side, and we’ve also established a really good culture, and we’re continuing to build that each year with our incoming freshmen,” he said.
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