"While Manny is undoubtedly passionate about rowing and brings a high level of intensity to his role, his approach to leadership raises serious concerns. He often frames his coaching style as fostering a “family-like team culture,” yet this has, in practice, enabled inappropriate behavior among athletes and blurred the line between professionalism and personal entanglement. In his first year, he appointed a rising sophomore as team captain—an athlete who went on to verbally abuse teammates over the next three years without any meaningful intervention. This lack of accountability significantly harmed team dynamics. By his third year, he appeared surprised when an entire women’s eight chose not to return, seemingly unaware of the long-term damage that poor leadership choices—enabled by his own oversight—had caused. This pattern suggests a larger issue: a coach who struggles with identifying and cultivating healthy, effective leadership, perhaps due to his own limitations in this area. Manny’s conduct has often felt erratic and unprofessional. He tends to single out athletes he disfavors and frequently overshares personal struggles, including mental health challenges, in ways that undermine his role as a stable and trusted leader. While openness can be powerful, it must be balanced with boundaries—something he often fails to maintain. His ego-driven coaching style limits collaboration and discourages input from others, even when they bring more experience or technical expertise. This contributed to the departure of the most accomplished coach the program had hired in recent memory—a significant loss for the team. Despite frequent rhetoric about a desire to win, results have not reflected meaningful progress. For instance, the men’s team placed identically at the end-of-season regatta two years in a row (third in the 3rd level final), despite his public insistence that the program has made significant gains. His communications to the broader rowing community often read more as spin than substance. Lastly, the team’s social media presence, which Manny manages, has not supported recruitment efforts. Frequent typos and awkward posts diminish the program’s credibility. Delegating this responsibility to student-athletes—who better understand what resonates with prospective rowers—could turn it into a more effective and engaging platform. This need for control, again, feels ego-driven. "

"Coach Manny cares about his athletes and team culture. As a parent and rowing coach, I know my son is in good hands. Manny has incredible energy and enthusiasm in developing a winning culture and sets some big goals that ignite a fire within his athletes. The assistant coach, Lenni, is also an excellent tech coach that does well in teaching proper body mechanics to prevent injuries. Great culture that balances academics and athletics. "

"Coach Manny exhibits clear vision and leadership for Skid row. He brings energy and effective feedback to his athletes. Skid row under his leadership will continue to rise."

"Coach Manny is a great coach. He cares not only about the athletes but also the people they are Developing into. He is always accessible and has created a successful, inclusive, and winning culture at Skidmore. His coaching is specific and demonstrates his mastery of the rowing stroke. He is a kind respectful individual that always has the athletes best interest in mind."

"Manny is an amazing coach that approaches the sport of rowing in a very unconventional way. He puts extreme focus on team unity and using teammates as vessels for motivation. This team focus allows each member of the team to be their own individual leader and facilitates a friendly but necessary peer-to-peer competitiveness. As a coach he emphasizes the importance of academics and encourages rowers to attend sports psychology sessions that break down the meaning of leadership. These sessions are typically 45' - 1 hr long but teach athletes how to standout beyond the confines of their sport. As far as rowing goes, he does a very good job at laying out his plan and ambitions for each season. He has a rotating schedule of easy, medium, or hard weeks. This both eases rowers into the beginning of the season and then helps to facilitate leaps in physical ability as the season progresses. He is very good at debriefing with each boat after races, understanding what went right, wrong, and what could be done better. These small things build and have allowed him to grow a program that was in shambles after Covid-19 lockdowns to one that is beginning to climb up the DIII ranks. One critique is that he is not always the greatest at giving clear on the water instruction for correcting technique. But we have another coach that is fairly good at giving tech pointers. "

"This coach cannot, build a boat, establish an effective practice, hold a cool temper, and coach both men’s and women’s team equally. He was majorly biased to his favorite fastest rowers and only cared to talk to them. He would constantly threaten he was going to have a “manurizm” and explode. As a result, there was never a time when I felt comfortable with this coach. Because of how he built boats and orchestrated practices, i hold a firm belief he didn’t know how to be prestigious rowing coach. I think overall he’s on a major ego trip, because he was able to get his name on the boathouse. The only notable achievement of his career was taking a M Lwt Quad to youth internationals and placed 10/11th. Overall, he’s a mentally abusive coach and needs a major reality check. "

"One of the only coaches at Skidmore that seems passionate about what they do."

"Very helpful kind coach. Cares about his students and his athletes."