PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania's head women's rowing coach, Bill Manning, has announced the hiring of Josie Konopka as the Quakers' assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. Konopka replaces Kumari Lewis, who recently left the program to become the head coach at the University of Alabama.
 
The hiring marks a return to Boathouse Row for Konopka, who put together an All-America career wearing the Red and Blue singlet and then spent the 2023-24 season as an assistant coach for the Quakers.
 
"Josie and her teammates elevated Penn Women's Rowing as determined, ambitious, and highly successful athletes," said Manning, who recently finished his first year guiding the program. "She now returns to Penn and the Schuylkill River where she previously coached with great success to keep Penn moving forward. Our current team will benefit tremendously from her experiences doing what they aspire to do and her concern for their well-being. Potential student-athletes will hear first-hand that academic and rowing success go hand-in-hand with a supportive team culture at Penn."
 
"I'm thrilled to return to my alma mater to work with Bill, Allyson, and this exceptional group of young women," said Konopka, "I am incredibly grateful for my time as a student-athlete at Penn and am eager to continue to give back to the program."
 
Konopka was an assistant coach at the University of Virginia last year, helping the Cavaliers to a tenth-place finish at the NCAA Championship following a runner-up finish at the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship. Prior to that, Konopka spent the 2023-24 season on Penn's staff as an assistant coach. That year, the Quakers continued to make history as they qualified for the NCAA Championships for the third straight year and had all three NCAA boats earn top-12 finishes for the first time (1V8 10th, 2V8 10th, V4A 11th) en route to a tenth-place team finish. At the Ivy League Championship, Penn took fourth in both the overall and NCAA point standings and the Red and Blue earned silver medals in the Varsity Eight, the Third Varsity Eight, and the Third Varsity Four.

Konopka was a two-year captain for the Quakers and earned first-team All-America honors from the College Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) and first-team All-Ivy two times. She helped lead the Quakers to their first full-team NCAA Championship appearance in 2022, when Penn finished 11th, and then was in the two-seat in 2023 as the Quakers' Varsity Eight won silver at the Ivy League Championship and followed that up with a fourth-place finish at NCAAs. Overall, Penn took sixth as a team. Konopka then moved back into her usual spot in the stroke seat as Penn made its debut at both the Henley Women's Regatta and Henley Royal Regatta, helping the Quakers advance to the final of the Royal's Island Challenge Cup final where they were nipped at the finish by the reigning British University champion, Oxford Brookes.

Konopka's return to the Penn women's rowing coaching staff adds another chapter to one of the longest-standing relationships in the college rowing world. Her father, Bruce, was one of three Konopkas from that generation to row for the Quakers and led the Penn lightweights to the 1976 Eastern Sprints title and the Thames Challenge Cup semifinal round at Henley. Bruce later had coaching stints across all three of Penn's rowing programs and was the 1984 ECAC Coach of the Year. Josie's mother, Molly, also rowed for Penn and later was an assistant coach with the Quakers. And Josie's older brother, James, rowed for Penn's lightweights. Another brother, Will, currently rows at Yale and rowed with rising Penn senior Ian Holly in the lightweight double sculls at the 2025 World Rowing U23 Championships.