.png&width=60&height=60&type=webp)
Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2014
- Class:
- 1998
Katherine E. McDowell '98
Sport: Sailing
Year Inducted: 2014
A five-time All-American and 2004 Olympian, McDowell led Brown sailing to a Women’s College Nationals Championship in 1998. After winning a team and individual National Championship at Tufts, McDowell transferred to Brown in 1996 and immediately lifted the team to national prominence. After leading Brown to a second-place finish at women’s nationals in 1997, the Bears claimed the top spot a year later. Current head coach John Mollicone states, “No doubt, she was the difference. Katie was also the top sailor on the Co-Ed team and an All-American Co-Ed skipper.”
One of eight sailing siblings, McDowell took to the waters of Barrington at age nine. When she learned that sailing was an Olympic sport, she decided immediately that she would compete at the Olympic Games; “I never stopped dreaming about it,” she later recalled. McDowell led the Moses Brown School to three appearances at High School Nationals and was later inducted into their Hall of Fame.
McDowell was a member of the US Sailing team from 2001 to 2004, regularly competing around the world. Her first foray into Olympic sailing began close to home at the Rhode Island International Sailing Association Regatta in Barrington, where McDowell and company took first place. Then, after back-to-back fifth-place finishes at the Olympic Classes Regatta in 2001 and 2002, McDowell seized first place at the 2002 US Women’s Olympic Pre-Trials.
The third time was the charm for McDowell after a first-place showing at the 2003 Olympic Classes Regatta. McDowell finished first at the 2003 Olympic Trials and earned a chance to sail in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, where she and her teammate Isabelle Kinsolving finished in fifth place in the Women’s 470 Class. Constantly battling for a shot at a medal, McDowell and Kinsolving took first in the 10th race and eventually finished fifth overall behind gold-medalist Greece, silver-medalist Spain, bronze-medalist Sweden and fourth-place Slovenia.
In the long history of Brown sailing, McDowell is the first women’s sailor to be inducted in the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame. McDowell went on to earn her Master’s of Business Administration from Yale University and currently serves as a vice president at Janes Capital Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on the aerospace and defense industry.
