Kate Bertko - Assistant Coach - Staff Directory - University of Washington Athletics

Staff Directory

Kate Bertko

Title:
Assistant Coach

Kate Bertko, a U.S. Olympics rower who coached Stanford's women's lightweights to three consecutive Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships, joined the Washington women's rowing coaching staff in the summer of 2021.

Bertko joined the Husky program immediately after having coached the United States women's pair at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. She'd spent the previous five years as the head coach of the Stanford lightweights, which won the IRA championship in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

A 2006 graduate of Princeton University, where she won an NCAA Championship in the varsity eight as a senior, Bertko spent seven years on the U.S. National Team, winning four medals at World Championship regattas – two silvers (2009 in the women's quad; 2013 in the lightweight double) and two bronze (2014 and 2015 in the lightweight single). In 2013, she was named USRowing's Female Athlete of the Year and in 2016, she competed at the Rio Olympics in the U.S. lightweight double.

Following her competitive career, Bertko took over as the lightweight coach at Stanford, where she was the three-time IRA and CRCA national coach of the year. She led the Cardinal to the IRA title in each of her first three seasons, sweeping all three events in 2017.

In five years at Stanford, 10 lightweight rowers earned CRCA Pocock All-America.

Prior to Stanford, Bertko also coached at California and Princeton, and at the junior level with the Oakland Strokes.

A product of Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, Calif., Bertko graduated from Princeton with a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology in 2006.