Yale Athletics

Heavyweight crew captain Harry Geffen ’25 was first introduced to rowing by his older brother, William Geffen. His brother, at 16, threw himself into the sport to improve his physical health and radically transformed his life in the process, going on to compete for the famed Oxford University Boat Club in Oxford, United Kingdom.

“It was a really formative experience. [It] demonstrated to me the kind of ways in which sports, but particularly rowing, could better [your] mental and physical health and provide a great community [for you]. Watching his races at [that] age was very inspiring,” Geffen told the News.

Geffen threw himself into the sport during his first year of high school. He attended Eton College, the inaugural home of amateur rowing and the home of “the largest boat club in the world,” according to the club’s website. The club further boasts a slew of accolades to its name, including 15 wins of the prestigious Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at the annual Henley Royal Regatta.

“There was just a really good atmosphere [at Eton],” said Geffen. “Coaches really understood the rowers, and [there were] lots of great opportunities, [both] on and off the water.”

This year, Geffen is joined by three fellow Etononians on the Yale heavyweight crew team: Luca Liautaud ’25, William Burges-Watson ’25 and Jamie Ginsberg ’28.

Pointing to a particularly impactful speech delivered by a New Zealand Olympic Gold winner at the school when he was 16 years old, Geffen noted how the pursuit of excellence was entrenched within Eton’s rowing culture.

“It was on the forefront of everyone’s mind. [We could see] a pathway to success at the highest level,” shared Geffen.

At Eton, Geffen was a member of the 2021 8+ team that concurrently won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Henley and the British National Schools’ Championship. In 2019, he was a winner in the Junior-16 8+ event at the Schools’ Head of the River Race — the United Kingdom’s largest school-age head rowing race — and qualified for the Temple Challenge Cup at Henley in the same year.

As he moved on from his junior rowing career during the pandemic, Geffen weighed staying local and continuing his collegiate career at Oxford, which both his father and brother attended, or crossing the Atlantic to enter the illustrious Ivy League rowing scene. An exploratory liberal arts system, the promise of a recruited class team with strong community ties and the opportunity to engage with people from various backgrounds promised a particularly enticing undergraduate experience at Yale. 

The several recommendations from fellow oarsmen who had attended Yale and attributed its rowing programme to their ascent to the Olympic level only strengthened his decision: Yale was his dream, and he would go abroad.

The recruitment process was fruitful, and Geffen arrived at Yale in 2022. He sat on the second varsity boat, which went undefeated through his first season. He then moved to the first varsity boat, where he has remained since. During the summer before his senior year, he was appointed captain by his teammates for the 2024-25 season.

While rowing at Yale, Geffen also proved himself on the international level. He is a two-time Under-23 World Champion for Great Britain, and in 2022, he sat in the stroke seat of Great Britain’s 8+ team that won gold at the Under-23 World Championships in Varese, Italy.

In 2023, Geffen also sat in the stroke seat for Great Britain’s two-pair rowing event alongside his former Yale teammate, Miles Beeson ’23. Geffen and Beeson won gold in the event at the 2023 Under-23 World Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

“It was exciting,” said Geffen. “You know, you want to be the guy that people want to be in the boat with. [But] everyone’s a cog in the wheel, and I really push [that] everyone needs to be a captain. [All of us] having high standards and that ferocious, gritty and ‘cannot lose’ mindset is [important]. I think the entire team has really stepped up to that.”

Heavyweight Crew head coach Mike Gennaro echoed Geffen’s sentiments.

“I think the standards to which Harry holds himself to and his selfless temperament are what led his teammates to elect him captain,” Gennaro wrote to the News. “[He] has been an outstanding leader this season. That being said, Harry is not leading this team alone. The entire senior class has done a terrific job on setting the tone within our program, guiding the underclassmen and contributing to our team culture.”

Harry Keenan ’24, who led Yale’s heavyweight team from 2023 to 2024, told Yale Athletics that “it’s a privilege to be elected captain” and that “to be chosen is truly an honor.” Keenan also noted that while the honorific title of  “captain” does not exactly define how a chosen individual leads, a captain must show that “effective leadership can only come from effective action.”

Gennarro also underscored a captain’s crucial role in providing insight into the lives of the oarsmen. Coaches, who construct the day-to-day training protocol for the oarsmen, hardly grapple with the “student” aspect of their rowers’ lives. To understand their commitments and responsibilities, they rely on captains to create an environment defined by mutual trust, honesty and communication — a duty Geffen performs effectively.

For Geffen, this sense of commitment and responsibility extends beyond the tips of his oars. 

While balancing crew with his coursework as an ethics, politics and economics major poses a challenge at times, Geffen seeks to further his studies in global development. After graduation, Geffen plans to return home to the United Kingdom and complete his graduate studies at Oxford, where he hopes to compete in the annual Oxford Boat Race — the same race that his brother, William, won in 2015.

Geffen also hinted at potentially competing in the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles, calling it “a dream.” He acknowledged that while “there’s a long way to go between now and then,” competing at such an elite level is within his “immediate focus.”

Pivoting to the present, Geffen told the News that his “real ambition” this season is to beat Harvard at this year’s 158th edition of the Harvard-Yale Regatta, which is set to take place on Saturday, June 7, in New London, Conn.

Last year, Geffen helped the Bulldogs defeat the Crimson in the 157th Yale-Harvard Regatta, where Yale won three of the four races.