Courtesy of Yale Sports Publicity

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- After eight seasons as Yale's heavyweight crew coach, John Pescatore has announced that he is resigning from his post. A national search is underway to find his successor.

"It has been an honor and inspiration to have coached at Yale, and athletes I've been lucky enough to work with here have given me a gift of their best efforts.  I am completely behind this team in their quest to go faster and further," said Pescatore.

The Bulldogs had some significant accomplishments during Pescatore's tenure. That included an undefeated dual racing season in 2006-07, when Yale earned a silver medal at the Eastern Sprints Championship, a bronze medal at the Head of the Charles in the Championship Eight (the U.S. National Team finished first) and a gold medal at the Princeton Chase Regatta. That same year, Yale defeated Harvard in their annual four-mile contest in what newspapers have called "the greatest comeback in the history of the regatta." Four oarsmen from the 2007 Yale crew, all recruited by Pescatore, were invited to compete for seats on the U.S. National Team for the Under-23 World Championships.

"We thank John Pescatore for his efforts in leading the Yale heavyweight crew program over the past eight seasons," said Tom Beckett, Yale's Director of Athletics. "John has influenced the lives of many fine young men during his tenure as our coach, and there have been many notable achievements during his career. We all wish him the very best."

The Bulldogs went 5-2 in the 2010 dual race season, successfully defending the Olympic Axe against Dartmouth for the seventh consecutive season and winning both the Blackwell Cup against Columbia and Penn and the Carnegie Cup against Cornell and Princeton for the first time since 2007.  

Six of the eight rowers in Yale's varsity boat, including two U.S. Under-23 team selections, return next season.

A 1986 Penn graduate, Pescatore won a Bronze Medal in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea, as stroke for the American heavyweight eight. He was also the stroke for the heavyweight pair without coxswain which placed sixth in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. In 2000, Pescatore served as assistant coach for the United States Olympic Team and coached the men's coxless pair to a Silver Medal at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. The men's pair was the top performing American crew in Sydney, and for his efforts, Pescatore was named the 2000 U.S. Rowing Coach of the Year.