Charley Butt, a 1983 graduate of Rutgers University, has guided Harvard's lightweight program to an impressive list of successes, and his teams have consistently been among the nation's best. In his tenure, Harvard has captured 12 Eastern crowns and seven national championships, including the 2003 IRA National Championship. His crews have been amazingly consistent, winning dual records in 22 of his 25 seasons at the helm. Perhaps the best year of all came in 1995, when the Crimson lights won San Diego Classic and Eastern Sprints crowns and then capped the season by winning the national championship.

In five of the last eight years, Butt's run with the lightweights includes three straight wins in the Goldthwait Cup (2003-05), emblematic of supremacy among crews from Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Additionally, his varsity and JV crews each captured gold medals at Eastern Sprints and won the Jope Cup (for overall lightweight team supremacy) at the same regatta three times in the last seven years.

Last season's lightweight varsity eight posted a 10-0 dual record and took EARC silver and IRA bronze. The 2009 eight went 8-1 in dual racing, finished second at the Sprints and bronze at the national championships. All five boats medaled in the grand final at Sprints and the Crimson won the Jope Cup.

In 2007, Butt's varsity eight has finished as the runner-up at the IRA Championship for the second year in a row. The Crimson missed out of the gold in 2006 by 0.08 seconds.

An outstanding oarsman himself, Butt rowed on the United States lightweight entry in the 1980 world championships which finished fourth. He was a member of the winning four with coxswain at the 1979 IRA Championship and later that year was selected as an alternate on the national lightweight team. In 1985, Butt was a silver medalist for the lightweight eight at the world championships in Belgium. In 1986, Butt was part of the Wyfold Cup championship crew at Henley.

As a coach, Butt's experience extends well beyond Harvard, including four stints as a United States Olympic coach, a position he continues to hold. His most recent assignment came in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where he guided Radcliffe alumna Michelle Guerette '02 to a silver medal in the women's single sculls. He served as her coach at the 2005 World Championships where she won bronze medal in the single sculls. The following year, he coached her to a fifth-place finish in Eton, England.

Four years earlier at the 2004 Olympics in Athens Butt and freshman heavyweight coach Bill Manning worked with former Crimson rowers Artour Samsonov '02, Henry Nuzum '99 and Greg Ruckman '96 in the pair, double and lightweight double.

At the 2000 Games, he coached the men's lightweight double, a boat that included Greg Ruckman '96. He also coached a pair featuring former Crimson oarsman Adam Holland '94 and a bronze-medalist lightweight single sculler at the 2002 world championships in Seville. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he coached the men's pair, a tandem which included Holland. He coached Holland's pair again in 1997 and '98 when they were third and a very close fourth, respectively, at the world championships.

Butt previously coached the U.S. men's quad that captured the silver at the 1991 Pan Am Games in Havana, was an assistant coach for men's sweep rowing (4+) at the 1993 world championships in the Czech Republic and coached the coxed four to a silver at the 1994 world championships. That boat featured three Harvard oarsmen: Holland, Bill Cooper '93 and Chris Swan '92.

Butt's athletes have also experienced success at the international level while undergrads. Most recently, Moritz Hafner '09 was a member of the Swiss straight four at the under-23 world championships, finishing sixth.