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Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2022
- Class:
- 1977
Marcia Hooper ’77 has been at the very center of Brown Women’s Crew since she was introduced to rowing through a serendipitous experience. As she tells it, “I was spotted on campus by an enthusiastic athlete who said I would be perfect for ‘crew;’ could I come to the boathouse on Saturday morning for a meeting. As a lifelong sailor, I went down and was surprised to see rowing shells, not the sailboats I expected.
Having realized my error, I tried to find a graceful way to exit, when Pete Amram, the women’s coach, approached me asking “Do you know how to steer a Whaler?” I said I did, so we climbed into the Whaler. Peter coached the single eight with his two-foot megaphone and I steered. We took the boat up the Seekonk and he had the crew stop.
Peter, now confident that I could steer a boat, instructed the coxswain that he was going to make a switch and said to me, ‘Get in the boat.’ Once in the coxswain’s seat, I was hooked.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Marcia was a coxswain for the rest of her Brown career. As Junior Varsity Coxswain, she participated in Brown’s first entry in the Eastern Sprints in 1975. In her junior and senior seasons, she steered the Varsity Eight as the team gained headway in the ranks of Eastern women’s rowing.
Since graduation, Marcia has been a dynamic leader in support of Brown Women’s Crew. She was the co-founder of the Friends of Brown Women’s Crew in 2004, the 30th anniversary of the program. She has been in a leadership role ever since, raising funds and creating events such as the Alumnae Row. Every celebration of Brown Crew has found Marcia at the center. In 1999 for the 25th year of Women’s Crew, and in 2009 for the combined Men’s and Women’s Celebration of 150 Years of Rowing at Brown, Marcia was again a major leader. As a founding Mother, Marcia has the distinction of having a shell named in her honor. Coaches John and Phoebe Murphy call Marcia their “most loyal and committed alumna... as dependable as the rise of the tide.”
At Brown, she has been a member of the President’s Athletic Advisory Council and currently Co-Chairs the Sports Foundation Board of Directors. She was a major contributor to the 2010 book, Ever True: The History of Brown Crew.
Marcia is also a major figure for women’s crew on the national level. She is on the Board of the National Rowing Foundation, Managing Director and Board member of the Head of the Charles Regatta, and a long-term leader in USA Rowing, serving as Board President. The organization embraces her ‘unwavering commitment to supporting US Rowing and the US National Teams.
She has been married to Jim Hooper since 1986. They have two children, Phil ’09 and Annie ’11. Annie was a member of the women’s crew that won the 2011 NCAA National Championship. Marcia and Jim reside in Dedham, Mass.
