Last Member of 1936 Rowing Team Passes

by John Berkowitz on Jul 23, 2009 8:35 PM PDT

The last member of the 1936 UW gold medal Olympic rowing team that represented the US in Berlin Olympic's has passed away,

This story taken from the Seattle Times.

H. Roger Morris, 94, who manned the bow position on the University of Washington crew that won the eight-oared gold medal at Adolph Hitler's 1936 Olympics in Berlin, died Tuesday at his home in Maple Valley.

Uw_1936_medium

A German sweep of the Berlin Olympics rowing events at the Regatta Pavilion at Grunau was averted only by a University of Washington win in the eights in front of Adolph Hitler, and the British triumph in the double (which marked Jack Beresford’s fifth medal (and third gold) over a span of five Olympics). Beresford, who ranks with Nickalls and Redgrave as one of England’s finest oarsmen, also accounted for seven Wingfields, four Diamonds and two Grands.

The story of the 1936 Rowing Team.

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thanks for this john

as much as we all like the football talk imo crew is the legacy unique to udub.
reading lukes paper was great. your stroke has walking pneumonia, i just had this a couple months ago and breathing without effort was painful enough, much less 44 strokes per minute!
that story really shows the power of team. i’m sure those weren’t eight best individual oarsmen in america but have all of them living together down at the shellhouse next to the builder of the best shells in the world and a windy lake to practice on and you could almost hear them joking about being in the windy lane six at the finals is just like being back home.
when george pockok had to move his private shell building business off public property in the early sixties to north lake union i remember going down there from my dad’s office in the u district and just being amazed at the level of craftmanship. those shell’s looked so fast sitting in the shop.
the huskies did pretty good at the 1960 olympics also with lou gellerman and three other classmates winning gold.
when the regatta and the alumni/spring game was on the same day, the south parking lot to the shellhouse, which was open, was a hub of activity.
sorry for the ramble, a lot of memories that make me proud of husky tradition.
rip mr morris.

by PandG on Jul 23, 2009 11:49 PM PDT via mobile reply actions

glad you liked it PandG

The US used to send the winner of the IRA to represent them in the Olympics and it worked well until the Europeans started putting together national crew programs filled with older select athletes. Still even today you will always find former Huskies on the US national team and many others across the world.

The Pocock story is just amazing…here is a link.

George Pocock

by John Berkowitz on Jul 24, 2009 8:14 AM PDT up reply actions