Amy Fuller Kearney is a Gaucho legend. Before she was known for her success with the US National Rowing Team and for her incredible 20-year career coaching the UCLA Rowing team, Amy got her start in Santa Barbara with UCSB Rowing.

Amy walked on to the women's rowing team as a sophomore at UCSB and within a year was on the 1989 US Worlds team. She went on to row on 11 US teams in three Olympics (1992, 1996, 2000) and eight World Championship teams between 1989 and 2000. She won an Olympic silver medal (1992) and eight Worlds medals in the women's straight four and eight, including a gold in the eight in 1995 and seven silver medals in the eight and four. She set several world records on the ergometer (rowing machine), including rowing a 2 km erg test in 6:27, pulled at UCSB. Amy won UCSB’s Athlete of the Year award in her senior year, and was an inaugural inductee into the UCSB Recreational Sports Hall of Fame. She started her coaching career at UCSB immediately after graduating, soon becoming the head coach, and subsequently coached at Tennessee, SDSU, and Stanford before being the UCLA head coach from 2001-2021. Amy was the 1993 US Rowing Female Athlete of the Year, a finalist for the Sullivan Award for the top amateur athlete in the country in 1995, and was inducted into the National Rowing Hall of Fame in 2010.  Amy also made a mark in the sport of sailing, serving as a starboard grinder with the America 3 in 1995 as well as a member of the first all-female team to challenge for the America's Cup. 

Sadly on March 11, 2023, Amy passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family, after a long battle with breast cancer.

Among Gaucho rowers, Amy’s legacy is more than an inspiration - it’s a credo, a philosophy that is carried and reinforced by every rower who decides to make UCSB Rowing a part of their lives. Amy was a force - intense, committed, and relentless, and it’s what we all aspire to be. She is deeply missed by the legions of rowers and teammates who knew and loved her, and by those who never had the chance to meet her but felt her story.

Because of her dedication to the sport of Rowing, we are raising funds in her honor to dedicate a new boat, the Amy Fuller Kearney, to the UCSB Rowing Team. Through the team, her legacy lives on.

For more information, please email 1444@santabarbararowing.com.