Talia Daft may be fairly new to the Michigan women’s rowing team, but she has always been in charge. Before the sophomore coxswain arrived in Ann Arbor, she was a volleyball captain for two years and a captain for the boy’s rowing program at Hanover High School — there was no women’s program for her to command, so she made do.
Those leadership experiences didn’t just bolster her resume. They prepared Daft to take control, guide her teammates and help her team stay competitive, especially with her role as coxswain.
“She understands in her natural qualities as a leader that leading off often means acting in service of something else,” Wolverines associate coach Liz Tuppen told The Michigan Daily. “So everything she does, she’s doing it for Michigan, she’s doing it for her teammates. That kind of selflessness, while also having high standards for herself, are some of the ways that her past experiences prepared her really well to lead on our program.”
Despite being used to leading in high school, Daft recognized that starting at a collegiate program, let alone a Division I program, meant starting fresh by working with new coaches and competing with older, more experienced teammates. But those older teammates weren’t there to diminish Daft’s leadership potential simply because of her then-freshman status. In fact, it was what Daft learned from her experienced teammates, including then-junior coxswains Lillie Gregory and Isabella Piementel and then-senior coxswain Logan Roeder, that laid the foundations of her impact at Michigan.
This mentorship was crucial because a coxswain is the on-water leader of the boat. Unlike rowers, who provide the physical power, the coxswain steers, sets the rhythm and makes split-second decisions during both practice and competition. A coxswain’s leadership is less about physical strength and more about communication, strategy and awareness — understanding how to keep the boat synchronized.
“I was really lucky that there were three upperclassmen coxswains this year at Michigan,” Daft said. “I felt like they took me under their wing and helped teach me how to become the best coxswain I could be at Michigan. For gaining the trust of older teammates, it’s really (about) showing up to practice, doing the best I can, taking their feedback and being coachable.”
Outside of her older coxswain teammates’ tutelage, Daft also benefited from the structured support of the Wolverines’ coaching staff, who worked to both sharpen her technique and improve her communication and develop her confidence. Over time, that consistent coaching allowed Daft to refine her voice in the boat, learning when to assert authority and encourage subtly. Her progression didn’t go unnoticed by the staff, who saw a young coxswain transform into someone capable of commanding the boat with a better tone.
“Talia made really big strides this year,” Tuppen said. “She was able to execute everything with just using tone and calmness, and then when she did need to be more aggressive or excited, they had a stronger effect.”
Part of what makes collegiate rowing challenging is the constant flux of the roster. Unlike high school, where lineups are relatively fixed and team chemistry develops over months without interruption, college crews often rotate athletes depending on injury, availability or strategy. For a coxswain, this means they must adapt quickly to new combinations of rowers, understanding each teammate’s strengths and weaknesses in order to get the best performance from everyone in the boat. While some might shy away from this daunting task, Daft embraced this dynamic as an opportunity rather than a setback.
Daft treats every lineup change as a leadership exercise, one that teaches her to be observant, flexible and empathetic while maintaining focus on performance. In an area that provides difficulty and resistance, Daft finds one of her strengths as a coxswain. She seizes the chance to grow as a leader — to experiment with communication styles, learn how different personalities respond to instruction and strengthen her ability to unify a group of individuals into a cohesive team. Because for her, that’s what it’s always been about.
“Really just sticking to similar calls across pieces, try to make them as same as possible, so that when even the rowers are switching, they still get the best opportunity by keeping the same moves at different points,” Daft said. “…I feel as a Coxswain, just really motivating them with information and just giving them everything that they need so that they are able to perform even in such a high stressful situation.”
This continuous drive to lift her teammates up alongside herself is part of what makes Daft the leader she is today. Despite all the challenges that come with leadership, she’s never shied away from it, because for Daft, it’s ingrained within her.
As she enters her second season with the Wolverines, Daft knows that challenges will remain consistent, but so will the opportunities to lead. And one day, she’ll be the veteran mentoring the future freshmen coxswains.
Leadership is something that comes naturally for Daft, but it’s also something that she’s fine-tuned over the years. Whether she’s in a boat, on the court or in the locker room, success for Daft has always been less about being in the front and more about making sure everyone gets there together as a team.
