Master Stroke

The Russians had a habit of jumping the start.

Not that they needed any more advantage. This was the vaunted Trud Rowing Club of Leningrad, the world champion men’s eight-oared crew. A juggernaut on the water, intimidating to the man, Trud held an edge in size and experience against almost any competition. And on this gusty July day in 1958, they would be racing before a partisan Moscow crowd, against a team of college kids from the University of Washington whom they had beaten soundly at the Henley Royal Regatta two weeks prior.

But that jackrabbit start at Henley had raised the hackles of their young challengers. “The whole boat was pissed about that,” recalls Chuck Alm (BA 1958), captain of the Husky eight.

Pissed, and poised. The start, as in all contests of international rowing, was called out in French: Êtes-vous prêt? Partez!

“We were prepared this time,” says coxswain John Bisset (BA 1958). “When the Russians shot out of the stake boats on Êtes, we went, too. The race was on.”

It would be the race of their lives.

Intro to Rowing

In fall of 1954, a promising group of strapping young men turned out at the Conibear Shellhouse to try their hand at this ancient sport that had brought generations of glory to the UW.

Among them were students of business administration who, along with their boat mates, would someday be enshrined into the Husky Hall of Fame: Alm, Bisset, and Roger MacDonald (BA 1958) from Seattle’s Roosevelt High School, and Andy Hovland (BA 1958) from Ballard High.

Their class would rarely ever lose, at any level, over the next four years.

But in 1957, the NCAA imposed sanctions on the Husky football program for rules violations. A two-year ban on post-season play extended to all varsity sports, including rowing. This meant the class of 1958 would have no chance to vie for a national title at the IRA Regatta their junior or senior years.

Legendary coach Al Ulbrickson pledged to his seniors that if they finished the regular season unbeaten, they would enter the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta in England, where the fastest crews on the planet came to duel.

The Huskies did just that, sweeping meets against Cal and Stanford, then besting a University of British Columbia crew stocked with Canadian Olympians.

“Henley,” says Alm, “was a tremendous reward for sticking it out those two years without a chance to compete for a championship.”

On to Henley

Henley also represented uncharted waters for the Huskies. And a trip of significant cost.

But rowing, in those days, was a marquee sport in Seattle, drawing tens of thousands of fans to Lake Washington on race days and dominating the local sports pages throughout the spring season. “Husky rowing wasn’t the only game in town,” recalls MacDonald. “But it was one of only a handful.”

The wrongfully punished Husky rowers became a local cause celebre. “On To Henley!” became a city-wide rallying cry.

Husky boosters stepped up their support. And hundreds of students—recruited and deployed by Artie Buerk (BA 1958)—raised thousands of dollars by selling $1 “On To Henley” buttons on the streets of Seattle.

In July, the Huskies arrived at Henley to compete for the Grand Challenge Cup—then considered to be the world championship. In the first round of the match-racing format, they drew the formidable crew from Leningrad. In torrential rain, the Soviets jumped to a quick lead on the Thames, and the Huskies could not recover. Trud Rowing Club won by one and a quarter boat lengths, then went on to claim the Cup without serious challenge.

Despite their gaping disadvantages, losing at Henley was a major blow to the Husky eight. “We did not row to our capability,” Alm says. “And this Russian national crew really took it to us.”

“They rowed a good race at Henley and we got beat,” agrees Bisset. “What can you say?”

A second chance

Unbeknownst to the oarsmen, the US State Department had brokered a cultural exchange that would send the Husky varsity eight to Moscow for a rematch against Trud. “The consensus among the guys was that if we had beaten the Russians at Henley, we would never have received an invitation,” Bisset says. “It was clear that they wanted to beat us again in front of their home crowd.”

Whatever the intent of their hosts, the Huskies accepted. They flew to Moscow, the first American athletes to compete behind the Iron Curtain.

As they toured the Russian capital, it became clear that this was not to be just another race. Posters promoting the event did not tout “Washington vs. Trud Club,” but rather “USA vs. USSR.”

“It was the Cold War. The Soviets and Americans were at odds, competing for superiority in technology, manufacturing, weaponry and athletics,” says Alm. “That gave it a political significance that we never contemplated, and added a surreal quality to the experience.”

On the bus ride to train one day, the team drove by a massive state-inspired protest outside the American embassy in response to US troops entering Lebanon to quell a communist uprising.

But the young American oarsmen received nothing less than VIP treatment in Moscow. They were fed Russian delicacies and bused to the Bolshoi Theater, Red Square, Moscow University and several museums. They even viewed the open tombs of Lenin and Stalin. “I remember feeling a little embarrassed,” recalls MacDonald, “because there was a line a half-a-mile long, and they took us right to the head of the line.”

Back to business

But Ulbrickson, a no-nonsense coach known as “the Dour Dane,” soon got their minds on the business at hand.

He drilled them up and down the Khiminskoe Reservoir on a new strategy.

The Huskies were accustomed to the three-mile distance of collegiate racing. But in Moscow, as at Henley, they would row the international sprint distance of 2,000 meters, a six-minute burst at full throttle that demanded the utmost in urgency.