A charter member of three clubs on the St John’s River, Kristen has enjoyed a long career as a competitor and coach. She began coxing at JU in an alumni Men’s Four in 1974 and coxed her crew in the largest regatta in the world, the Head of the Charles months later. In 1975, she continued to be involved with JU as the stroke for the Women’s Crew through state and placed second in the Women’s Varsity Four and won the Single at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship. In 1976, after coaching the JU Women’s Varsity Four that spring to second place in the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship, Kristen raced an undefeated season in her single, to place second in the Nationals, and the first Women’s Olympic Rowing Double Trials. By the summer of 1977 Kristen was undefeated again, and this time, including the Women’s Junior National Single Title. Two months later proudly accepted the first rowing scholarship offered by JU.
Top national ranking in the elite women’s single brought her to the first Women’s Olympic Development Camp the summer of 1978. Kristen raced stroke seat as a member of the JU Men’s Crew her frosh year, and the Women’s Crew her sophomore year, all the while continuing to win multiple State and Southern Championships in sweep and sculling events. In the spring of 1978 Kristen stroked the JU Women’s Varsity four to a bronze at the Dad Vail National Championships. Kristen went on to race in her single in the Open Women’s Nationals again, maintaining her top 6 national ranking in the elite women’s single. Named team captain by her peers her junior year, her Women’s Varsity Four beat the Olympic Training Center crew in the Head of the Chattahoochee, after winning the single and double events the same day. When the US president announced boycotting the 1980 Olympics, Kristen stepped away from competitive rowing to focus on coaching.
Negaard O’Brien began coaching as early as 1976 at Jacksonville University. Kristen attended the US Rowing Association’s first Coaching College to earn her US Rowing Coach Certification. While coaching at JU, Kristen served a three-year term as a member of the US Rowing Association’s Coaching Education Program coaching staff providing three seminars each year for the US Rowing national standardization of rowing technique & sports physiology. Over the next few years, she coached five scullers to national titles and two sweep crews to the national finals for rowing clubs, high schools and universities; Jacksonville Episcopal High School, Jacksonville University and the United States Coast Guard Academy among them. Within two years, both JU & USCGA’s women’s programs returned to national prominence in light weight four and eight events respectively. JU’s bronze medal in the Dad Vail National Championships in the Women’s Varsity Lightweight four came 10 years after her own bronze medal. Kristen, her parents and brother received Jacksonville University’s Distinguished Service Award, the first time it was awarded to a family. Kristen’s father Bob invented the third greatest invention in rowing – the Winged Rigger. Coming full circle, Kristen served four years as the SE Representative on the Women’s Olympic Rowing Committee.
Seeking balance in life, Kristen stepped away from national level coaching in 2004. Since then she has coached on her home waters in Noank, CT with the focus of teaching life skills to middle, high, and home schooled students by way of rowing. As the head coach and spearhead of the Noank Rowing Club, Kristen provides students and adults alike with the finer points of sculling, and specifically ‘Life Health Through Rowing’, thus ending her 41 accumulative years of coaching.
