Northeastern University Athletics

Upon his arrival at Northeastern, Scott Fentress’ talents were quickly put to use as a member of the championship eight event at the Head of the Charles Regatta where Northeastern took fifth place overall, with Princeton being the only collegiate crew to beat them.

The spring season of 1996 was possibly one of Northeastern’s greatest and unquestionably its most tragic. The first varsity had been one of the fastest in the country and one of the most successful in Northeastern history; posting an undefeated regular season record; downing their regular season competition with precision: Boston University by 12 seconds, defending national champion Brown by four, Rutgers by five and Pennsylvania by two. 

Then came Harvard, whom the Huskies had only beat twice in their previous 16 attempts. With Fentress in the boat, Northeastern won the annual Charles River battle by two seconds. Weeks later, Northeastern entered the prestigious Eastern Sprints Regatta as the second seed. Despite the seed, the Huskies, the only non-ivy league school to qualify for the grand final at the regatta that year, led wire to wire, winning by nearly two seconds, besting Princeton, Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Yale and Harvard. It was Northeastern’s first victory in the prestigious event since 1973. 

Then the roof caved in. Due to compliance confusion, Northeastern had been competing all season with an academically ineligible oarsman and was forced to forfeit the entire season.

The years that followed were peppered with tremendous triumph for Fentress; the highlight of which came in the summer of 1997 when Fentress became a world champion. He represented the United States and won the gold medal at the World Championship in Aiguebelette, France in the Heavyweight Coxed Pair (2+) event. He returned to Boston in the fall as captain of the team and was later named Northeastern men’s rowing Outstanding Varsity Oarsman in 1998. Future National Team selections followed in 1998 and 1999 with the latter seeing Fentress take third place in the Heavyweight Straight Pair (2-) event at the World Cup in Brussels, Belgium.

After the 1999 National Team season, Fentress refocused on school and completed his degree in mechanical engineering and pursued a career in biomedical research and development, robotics, and information technology. However, in September 2001 Fentress joined the United States Navy and later graduated “Honor Man” (Valedictorian) of his U.S. Navy SEALS class. His military career included 7 combat deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa and Philippines between 2003-2014. He credits every facet of his personal and professional ventures to Northeastern’s high caliber academic and athletic programs.

Most recently, Fentress returned to the water and competed with fellow Northeastern Alumni at the 2017 Head of the Charles Regatta in the alumni eight event where the elder Huskies took fifth place at 14:51.684.