Allison Foster - Women's Rowing Coach - Oregon State University Athletics

Allison Foster

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
allison.foster@oregonstate.edu
Phone:
541-207-2674

Former Oregon State rower Allison Foster enters her fourth season with the Oregon State women's rowing program and her first as the associate head coach. She served as the program's assistant coach the last two seasons.

Prior to assuming the title of assistant coach, Foster spent the 2017 spring season as OSU’s interim head coach. During that transitional time, Foster helped direct the Beavers’ Varsity 8 crew to a sixth place finish at Pac-12 Championships, marking the best OSU V8 finish since 2009. Fifteen OSU student-athletes were named to the Pac-12 All-Academic teams that season.

In Foster's fourth year in 2020-21 as associate head coach, she helped Oregon State to its best finish at the Pac-12 Championships since 2009, fourth-place with 21 team points. The Beavers ended the regular season with a win over 16th-ranked Washington State, earning back the Tammy Crawford Plate for winning the varsity-8 race against the Cougars and the Jodi Winchell Cup which goes to the team that scores the most team points in the Oregon State vs. Washington State dual. Foster assisted in Muryn Greene get named to the Pac-12 All-Conference Team.

In 2018, her first season as an assistant, the V8 raced to a sixth place finish at Pac-12 Championships for the second straight year, a first for OSU since a stretch of three consecutive years from 2007-09. The Beavers’ V8 crew won its first two duals of the season including on the road at UCLA and at home against Gonzaga and was recognized by the coaches at the Clemson Invitational as the 2018 Breakout Boat.

In 2019, the Beavers’ Varsity 8 earned its first ranking since 2015 peaking at No. 16, OSU’s highest ranking since 2009. The squad earned a fifth-place team finish at Pac-12 Championships in 2019, the program’s best placing since 2009, and the V4+ raced to fourth at the conference regatta. Senior Alina Hagstrom earned Pac-12 All-Conference and CRCA All-America honors for the second year in a row, becoming the fourth rower in Oregon State history to garner all-conference honors twice in her career, and the third Beaver rower to be named as an All-American twice.

The 2020 was expected to bring another level of improvement for the program, until the season was canceled in mid-March after a single spring race due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to her return to Corvallis, Foster spent a year and a half stint as the assistant rowing coach at the University of North Carolina.

Her professional career started at the University of Puget Sound as the assistant men’s rowing coach, leading the team to a conference championship in 2014 on the way to being named the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference Men’s Coach of the Year.

Foster rowed for four years at Oregon State after walking onto the team as a freshman and rowed under current head coach Kate Maxim, who was then in charge of OSU’s novices. During her time, she represented women’s rowing on the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, and was named Most Inspirational her senior year. Foster served as volunteer assistant coach on the Beaver staff for a year following the expiration of her NCAA eligibility.

A 2012 graduate of Oregon State University, Foster earned her bachelor’s degree in public health and a minor in nutrition. She has also worked at YMCA’s in Washington as an Aquatics Director, and has experience leading youth and teen outdoor leadership programs. Foster is a certified US Rowing Level 2 Coach.