Class Endowments: Our Past & Future Together
February 10, 2025 | Men's Rowing, Women's Rowing
“On my first squad as a coach at the University of Washington in the Fall of 1922 and the Spring of 1923 were men who became true leaders in many fields of endeavor. The president of Pratt-Whitney Corporation; one of the executive heads of the Rockefeller Medical Foundation; the president of the first chartered National Bank in the country; and others who have made outstanding contributions in this country's life and times. That first squad shows merely the type of person the sport of rowing first attracts, then helps to develop.”Coach Rusty Callow '15
by Eric Cohen '82
At Washington Rowing, we build future leaders. It is a founding principle of who we are, and it makes us fundamentally different from other sports. We build character, teach hard work and resiliency, uniquely teach team before self, and ultimately reach together for exceptional goals, building unbreakable bonds along the way.
Rusty Callow’s 1923 Varsity went on to win the first National Championship at Washington, followed by the 1924 and 1926 teams (featuring Al Ulbrickson at stroke). Many of those men returned for decades as Stewards of the program, bonded by their gratefulness and the class brotherhood built since freshmen. And since that time, we have had either individual classes, or groups bonded by shared experience (the ’36 team is a good example), work together post-graduation to support the program that they so highly valued.
Through the years those efforts have become even more formalized, with classes and groups joining together to form specific endowments that celebrate that bond. In 2006, Fred Fox became the first to lead his class in establishing the Class of ’76 Endowed Men’s Crew Scholarship, an effort to perpetually honor the values learned as freshmen together. “Those times we had together at the shellhouse are unforgettable and today are even more meaningful,” said Fred recently. “It was important to all of us to give back to this place and program that had such a major influence on the trajectory of our lives.”
Al Forney, who with multiple classmates established the Class of ’82 Scholarship Endowment for Men’s Rowing in 2012, had similar motivations. “I have been – and this is going on forty years now - continuously amazed at the quality of the young people graduating out of this program. It’s exceptional. You don’t see this at this level in other sports, and it is directly related to the sport itself. All of us know it, all of us experienced it and for our class, together, we wanted to express our gratitude for it. There is not one of us who would trade in those years together for anything else.”
Since that time, the Class of ’67 has made a major gift (Class of ’67 Men’s Crew Endowed Fund), and just this summer a group of oarsmen (lightweight and heavyweight combined from the Classes of 1983 to 1987) formed the 1984 National Champions Endowed Fund. “1984 was an incredible year for all of us,” said Lincoln Thompson, '84 lightweight captain and stroke who with Matt Cockburn '84 and Chris Pugel, '83 heavyweight, spearheaded the effort. “Undefeated lightweight program, undefeated heavyweight and ’84 National Champions, just the whole thing. That year was special across the board and a lot of us wanted to do something to remember it and celebrate it... and we could think of no better way to do that than to permanently, positively influence the program through this endowment.”
“This is the wave of the future,” Michael Callahan, men’s head coach said. “It is a reflection of the legacy this sport leaves to all of us and we are starting to see it pick up momentum. None of us can see into the future as intercollegiate sports continue to rapidly evolve, but there is no better way to permanently influence our program than a collective gift like this. I encourage all of our alumni to talk it over with teammates and classmates and see where this can go.”
“To me, the finest spectacle in sport is to watch a crew when all of its members are seemingly closest to exhaustion, rise to challenge, or to the challenge of their opponents, and go out and beyond themselves. If you have never been part of such an effort, you can never really fully appreciate what it accomplishes in the mind and hearts of its participants. The individual oarsmen never forgets such an experience, and in that great common effort lies the real secret of the feeling oarsmen have for their sport, and the affinity they feel for one another. Such effort cannot attract or hold the man who thinks of quitting when the going gets rough.”-Rusty Callow'
Alumni Alert! Put Friday, May 2, 2025 on the calendar today for a Pre-Windermere Cup party at Conibear Shellhouse, featuring the official unveiling of the Bob Ernst Bronze on the Legend Wall at Conibear. This will be a fly-in event for over 4 decades of our men and women alums to celebrate Coach Ernst, start planning your reunions today!
This story was originally published in the Fall, 2024, edition of SWEEP Magazine. To read the full issue, click here.
