Megan Dirkmaat: Mormon Athlete

Megan Dirkmaat McCourt is an Olympic silver medalist who was part of the women’s US rowing team at the 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. Their team finished 1.86 seconds behind the Romanian team who took gold. She was a member of the 2007 US national rowing team and won gold in the 2007 World Rowing Championships in Munich.

Dirkmaat was born on May 3, 1976, in San Jose, California. She studied at Brigham Young University and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master of education in sports management from the University of Washington. She was the women’s coach for the Mercer Junior Rowing Club in West Windsor, New Jersey, a team her husband, Sean, built. In 2012 they moved to McCallie in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she is an assistant coach for the rowing crew. In 2015 she became head rowing coach for the Girls Preparatory School.

She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She and her husband are the parents of three children.