University of San Diego
NCAA DI • WCC
Date: November 28, 2025
Would Recommend
Tags
BART THOMPSON IS A TERRIBLE COACH AND MANY MANY GUYS HAVE CONFRONTED HIM DIRECTLY, COMPLAINED TO ADMINISTRATION AND FINALLY JUST QUIT. Amazing how athletes offering honest feedback are somehow cast as persecutors. Instead, consider that sometimes people are simply being held accountable for their choices. Frankly, if anyone is ending Bart Thompson's career, it's Bart Thompson himself. Chalking up the problems with this coach's behavior to some kind of inability to cope with a leadership style, or some kind of petty vendetta, is exactly how abusers persist in systems that require oversight by adults who 1) can recognize and cope with problems in coaching and leadership and 2) can set aside their own agendas to do what needs to be done to ensure student athletes are protected from individuals who manage power unethically. There are ample examples of this coach's inability to manage himself. The fact that a parent (?) needs to come online and offer their uninformed perspective is a great indication of adults with no actual understanding of the behind the scenes behaviors protecting a coach who simply cannot function is the problem. Coaches who cannot manage their tempers or their boundaries can cause serious damage to their athletes. We all have to face situations involving disappointment or disillusionment; it's part of facing the reality that some leaders do not possess the maturity to handle authority. Many of the ratings on this site - over the span of years - specifically call out Thompson's ability to sell himself and charm parents and administrators and incoming freshmen. You would think someone could entertain the possibility that what he sees on the surface is not all there is to the story. When you have rowed under this specific coach and you have been the target of his ranting and watched him lie and manipulate, when you've missed sleep and studying because he can't manage schedules or does not care to, when you've watched rowers' talent and drive wasted by a coach's inability to address their technical shortcomings, when you've watched a coach screw up lineups and sleep schedules so the boat can't perform....then by all means, please contribute your perspective. Otherwise, please keep your fan fiction to yourself. Students on the USD rowing team need to come forward, not engage in one of the hallmark functions of abusive contexts: secrecy. Since I wrote this review USD dismissed Thompson. The team is made up of a lot of dedicated strong rowers. Once a new coach is found this program will fly.