Former Triton Jeff Collett returns to La Jolla as the head coach of the UC San Diego men's rowing team, Director of Athletics
Earl W. Edwards announced in August 2022. Collett brings with him a decade of coaching experience, six years of which were spent as an assistant coach at UC San Diego.
"We are excited to welcome Jeff Collett back to campus as our men's rowing head coach," Edwards said. "Jeff's time as a scholar-athlete here and his coaching experience will lead our program forward and we trust that, under his leadership, our current scholar-athletes will have a positive experience as he did when he was a member of our rowing program."
Collett first joined the Tritons as a scholar-athlete in 2007. A transfer from Orange Coast College, he rowed for two seasons before graduating with a degree in communications in 2009. After a stint as the head youth rowing coach at Newport Aquatic Center, he returned to La Jolla in 2013 as the Tritons' recruiting coordinator and assistant coach.
Collett takes the reigns of a program which concluded with the Varsity 8 boat claiming a fourth straight Western Sprints Championship. This is a return to coaching for Collett, who spent the past year and a half working in the world of e-sports as Director of Operations at Cloud9 Training Grounds.
In his time as UC San Diego's assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, Collet helped lay the groundwork for the team's current success. The Tritons' Varsity 8 boat has won the last four Western Sprints Championships, and Collett recruited every member of the boats which began that run in 2018 and 2019 (the event was cancelled in 2020). He also coached the Third Varsity 8 boat to five consecutive wins at the Western Sprints from 2015-2019.
Collett was a decorated rower himself, helping Orange Coast College win a pair of championships in 2007, and being named to the All-Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association (WIRA) First Team after helping UC San Diego qualify for the national championship in 2009.
He also has four years of head coaching experience at the youth level, split between Newport Aquatic Center in Orange County and Northampton Community Rowing in Massachusetts. This is his first collegiate head coaching role.
