Announcing the 2026 Empacher-IRCA Scholar Athletes

The Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association is excited to announce our 2026 Empacher-IRCA Scholar Athletes. We are proud to offer our congratulations to these rowers and coxswains who have demonstrated what it truly means to be a "student-athlete".

We’d also like to thank Empacher Bootswerft for their continued partnership as our official awards sponsor.

In order to be named a "scholar athlete", rowers and coxswains must have met the following criteria:

• Athletes from all IRCA Member Schools are eligible

• Athletes must be in their second year or more of eligibility

• Athletes must have competed in their program’s top 3 boats during the current season or raced at the 2022 IRA Championship.

• Athletes must have, at least, a 3.50 cumulative GPA through fall semester.

With another year behind us, below are some numbers that further highlight these achievements.

• There were 676 rowers and coxswains who met the criteria set by our Awards & Polling Committee (detailed above). They represent 55 teams (31 heavyweight, 7 lightweight, and 17 Division 3) from 48 member programs.

• The average GPA was a 3.76 and the highest GPA was held by Walid Ghamra ‘26 of Cornell University with a GPA of 4.250.

• The highest number of scholar athletes from a single team was 30 from the Harvard heavyweights. The highest number from one program came from Harvard University with 48 combined scholar-athletes from their heavyweight and lightweight teams.

The full list can be seen in the spreadsheet below, which you can also view here or view/download as a Google Sheet here.