Coach Taylor Brown has 16 years’ experience in rowing, and 12 years’ experience in high performance sports. He is a 2008 graduate of St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, DE and a 2012 graduate of Brown University where he earned a B.A. in Psychology and rowed for the men’s crew team.

 

During his career at Brown University, Taylor’s boats consistently won the EARC and Ivy League Championships (’09,’10,’12) and placed top three at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championship (’09,’10,’12). Taylor’s boats also made two trips to Henley Royal Regatta where they placed second in the Temple Challenge Cup and Grand Challenge Cup (’09,’12).

 

After college, Taylor earned his M.S. in Kinesiology from The University of Texas at Austin. Taylor’s thesis research explored experiences of adversity and psychological resilience in master’s rowers. This process included interviewing 12 rowers from Austin Rowing Club. His resulting theory explained how master’s rowers deal with adversity in rowing, and the factors that help support them.

 

During graduate school from 2013-2015 and again in 2016-2017, Taylor trained and competed at the elite level in sculling. The highlights of his elite career included being coached by some of the top coaches in the country including Reilly Dampeer at Potomac Boat Club, David Gleeson at Newport Aquatic Center, and Bernhard Stomporowski at California Rowing Club. He also had the opportunity to race at Henley Royal Regatta in the Double Sculls Challenge Cup and at the Head of the Charles Regatta in the Men’s Championship Single where he competed against Olympic bronze medalist, Kjetil Borch, and silver medalist, Damir Martin.

 

In the summer of 2015, Taylor stepped in at Austin Rowing Club as interim Master’s rowing coach. During this time, Taylor successfully bridged the gap between the outgoing coach and the incoming one.  

 

Before his 2016-2017 campaign, Taylor took a year off training and coached with the women’s rowing team at The University of Texas at Austin. During the fall semester, Taylor rode with and observed Dave O’Neill coaching. During the spring semester, Taylor was given responsibility over the 3V and Freshman/4V eights. The highlights of the season were the 3V win at Big 12s and the Freshmen victory at the San Diego Crew Classic. Taylor’s coaching ended following the 2016 season when he decided to return to training for one more national team bid.

 

At the same time as he was coaching at UT, Taylor was co-head coach of the Men’s Varsity Rowing Team at Austin Rowing Club, and helped the young group find great success at local, regional, and national championship regattas. Taylor also was a group fitness trainer at the well-known RoFitness.

 

After Taylor retired from competition in 2017 due to a recurring injury, he joined the team at the Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation in the President’s Office at The University of Texas at Austin. Here Taylor first served as the Senior Program Coordinator before moving up to the role of Associate Director. At CSLi, Taylor designed and deployed leadership and character development education to largely underserved youth in the Austin area. He also spearheaded events and partnerships, including an active partnership with Kevin Durant to provide leadership development to athletes at the Kevin Durant Center in Prince George’s County, MD. The highlight of Taylor’s time at CSLi was planning a speaking event centered around leadership in sports featuring Dr. Brené Brown.

 

Since departing from CSLi, Taylor has turned his side-hustle into his full-time career. Taylor works with elite and professional athletes in his mental performance consulting practice Enduromind. Currently, Taylor works with professional and Olympic athletes on the mental side of sport. Specifically, Taylor helps athletes:

 

• Inhabiting their body & getting out of their own way

• Working with discomfort, the challenges of perfectionism and the glitches in goal setting

• Recognition and regulation of the sensations of stress and performance anxiety.

• Recognition and regulation of unhelpful thinking and mind wandering.

• Trusting their training and performing naturally.

• Allowing pain rather than distracting, avoiding, or repressing.

• Cultivating compassionate inner self talk around mistakes or failure.

• Leveraging gratitude and personal character strengths without becoming attached or identified.

• Applying a mindful approach to goal setting.

 

Drawing on his interest and expertise in mental performance, Taylor is also a monthly columnist for Rowing News Magazine. Lastly, Taylor produces a podcast, The Mindful Sport Performance Podcast, which features athletes and coaches discussing their experience with the mental side of sports.

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Contact Taylor directly at Enduromind.com

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