Friends of Rowing History: “The Friends of Rowing History is an informal group interested in the rich history of rowing… We are working closely with the National Rowing Foundation and also with Mystic Seaport to help establish a rowing history presence. We are happy to have anyone with a similar interest join us.”
Intercollegiate Rowing Association Poughkeepsie Regatta Archive: Hosted by Marist College Library, this website has many valuable materials available 0nline, including the 1936 Regatta Program.
Row2K.com: Ed Hewett’s Row2K.com is the premier source for rowing news.
University of Washington Crew: The Official Homepage of the Huskies. And there’s HuskyCrew.com for friends and supporters.
Interview with Gordon B. Adam by the LA84 Foundation: Gordon Adam tells his story to the LA84 Foundation. Adam was in the three-seat of the 1936 Olympic Eight.
Alvin Ulbrickson with Richard L. Neuberger, “Now!Now!Now!” Collier’s, June 26, 1937: Coach Ulbrickson explains his success with the Husky crew and remembers the Berlin race in this article previewing the 1937 IRA Regatta.
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July 27, 2012 at 2:52 pm
William A Kattermann
I must take issue with your comment about the 1936 USA Olympic Trials. They were held on Lake Carnegie and the finish was very closely contested between the Huskies and the Penn AC Crew (in which Joe Burk was a member). It was a photo finish with the Huskies winning by a bow sprit. In fact, it was the first time poto finish was used in USA rowing. An enlargement of the photo finish hung in the old Princetion Boat Hose. The picture seeems to have vanished. In addition to Joe Burk. Dick Jordan, later Penn Lightweignt coach was a member.
July 27, 2012 at 3:10 pm
admin
Thanks very much your comment. Yes, the legendary Joe Burk was in that boat. Rusty Callow replaced two oarsmen from his sixth-place boat at Poughkeepsie with Joe Burk (who graduated in 1934) and Charles Swift (the captain of Penn’s 1935 crew). The Penn boat gained tremendous speed in the two weeks between Poughkeepsie and Princeton. At the same time, Cal’s boat lost quite a bit when Al Daggett, the five-oar, revealed his broken ribs and was replaced only 5 days before the Olympic trials.
I think you might be confusing two different races. In 1932, Cal beat Penn A.C. in Philly to go to Los Angeles by only .2 of a second. In 1936, at Princeton, Washington rowed a 6:04.8 and Penn a 6:08.6 – almost 4 seconds between them. See: Report of the American Olympic Committee (New York, 1937), 246.
Here’s a snippet from my manuscript, taken from interviews with the oarsmen and contemporary press accounts:
[Penn made a good move in the third-500, but Washington countered.... here's where we pick it up]:
“The facility with which the Huskies stopped the Quakers’ momentum in the third five-hundred offered a portent for the end of the race. Heading into the final 500-meters, the Huskies “really went to work.” Moch called the stroke rating up two, and the Husky Clipper reeled in the Penn squad within twenty strokes. Raising the rating again, the Washingtonians passed the Pennsylvanians “like a graceful swan,” one newspaper reported the next day. Another said the Huskies passed the Quakers like “the Queen Mary going by a lighthouse.” Penn’s oarsmen had no answer for the Huskies’ charge; their reservoir of energy, already badly depleted the day before, finally bottomed out with less than two minutes to go. With only about 250 meters left, and the Huskies lengthening their lead to almost a full boat length, Moch again called the rating up. Amazingly, the spacing between the oar blade puddles – which usually shortens when the stroke rating goes up, because recovery time between strokes is lessened – maintained its impressive ratio. The boat was running between strokes at 40 strokes per minute at about the same spacing as 36 strokes per minute; in other words: they were flying.”