Phil Carney, a 1985 graduate of Trinity College where he was a co-captain of the Bantams varsity heavyweight crew, is in his 40th year at Wesleyan in the 2026-27 season. Carney is the longest-tenured member of the Wesleyan Athletics staff. Carney is a three-time NESCAC Coach of the Year and two-time National Div. III Coach of the Year honoree while he led the 2023-24 squad to the team's first National Championship in program history.
Carney's 2023-24 squad completed a perfect season in the spring, with the varsity 8 going 7-for-7 with first place finishes in all seven races, including a triumph at the 2024 IRA Division III National Championship, winning the national title for the first time in team history. The Cardinals joined men's lacrosse (2018) and women's tennis (2019) as the third team in school history to win a national championship. Wesleyan's V8 time of 5:41.53 in the title race is an IRA D3 record, edging out the runner-up Williams by a mere 0.207 seconds. Along the way to the title, Wesleyan captured wins at WPI's Class of 2003 regatta, the Little Three Championship for the first time since 2019 , the New England Championship for the fifth time in team history (1967, 1987, 2004, 2019, 2024) and the National Invitational Rowing Championship and NESCAC Championship, both for the first time in team history.
The 2025-26 Wesleyan team nearly made history again in the IRA D3 National Championship, as the V8 boat finished just 0.15 seconds behind Trinity in the grand final in what is the closest grand final in the history of the IRA National Championship. Wesleyan went on to finish as the National Runner-Up for the second time in team history (2023, 2026). In that 2025-26 season, Wesleyan was crowned NESCAC Champions for the second time in team history, taking first place at the National Invitational Rowing Championships, while the Cardinals also won the Little Three Championship for the 20th time in team history and finished as the New England Runner-Up.
Carney led the Cardinals to one of the most-successful seasons in team history in 2022-23, as Wesleyan finished as the national runner-up in both the varsity 8 and 2nd varsity 8, tied for the best finish at a national regatta in team history and the highest finish since 1987. Carney's varsity 8 boat finished the regular season with an 11-1 record and the No. 2 national ranking for a majority of the season. Carney was named the Division III National Coach of the Year by the Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association (IRCA) for the first time in his career.
He coached the freshman at Trinity for two seasons before coming to Wesleyan in 1987. He owns several medals won at the USRA Nationals as a member of the Pioneer Valley Rowing Association, and has been active in coaching lightweight men since that time as well. Carney was a U.S. Rowing lightweight development coach in both 1988 and 1992. In 1993, he founded the Riverfront Recapture Rowing Club, a community rowing program serving the Hartford area. He continued in his role as head coach there through 1996. In the summer of 1997, Carney served as a guest coach at the Craftsbury Sculling Center in Vermont. In the summer of 1999, Carney took over the head coaching job for the Middletown parks and recreation department crew program, and for several years fashioned a team that went on to compete during the fall at the Head of the Connecticut and the Head of the Charles Regattas. In 2008, all three of Carney’s varsity eight Wesleyan entries (first varsity-bronze, second varsity-silver and third varsity-bronze) captured a medal at the New England Rowing Championships. His boats nearly repeated the effort in 2012-13 when the first varsity took fourth, the second varsity claimed third, and the third varsity placed second.
