Different Stroke: UW's Scott Unique

Jason Scott is just your typical college oarsman who has met Fidel Castro, bungee-jumped nude and won the coveted stroke position at Washington after transferring as a senior.

Happens every day.

Sure. And all you have to do to play quarterback at the UW is walk in off the street.

This Jason and his Argonauts begin their search for college rowing's version of the Golden Fleece - the national championship - this weekend with the West Coast championships near Sacramento.

The Huskies are heavily favored to win and qualify for the national regatta June 11-12 in Cincinnati, where Brown looms as the boat to beat.

Scott, 23, brought impressive credentials to the UW. He competed in world junior events then advanced to the U.S. eight-oared shell that won the silver medal in the 1991 Pan American Games in Cuba. In the same Games, his mother, Vikki, then 42, won a silver in a pairs event.

Rowing had fascinated Scott since he went to the UW Opening Day regatta as a second-grader. However, the opportunity to pull an oar didn't come until he moved from Bellevue to Alexandria, Va. - a suburb of Washington, D.C. - where at T.C. Williams High School crew was an interscholastic sport.

Scott had started high school at Newport High and moved when his mother, who raised him as a single parent, accepted a promotional transfer with the Red Cross.

At 6 feet 5, and with the strength to do 23 pullups in a Husky fitness test last fall, Scott is a natural for crew. He staked his case for a seat in the UW varsity boat by setting course records with teammates in two-oared competition last fall and winter.

Scott said he didn't feel like an outsider for long at the UW. He had rowed in junior world competition with UW teammate Scott Munn and knew a handful of other Huskies.

Scott may be the only Husky to arrive as a senior and win the coveted stroke seat. But coxswain Mike Chudzik said that hasn't caused dissension.

"Not all all," Chudzik said. "He was that good and it (stroke) was the perfect seat for him."

The stroke seat is the one directly in front of the coxswain. It is vital because the stroke sets the pace for other rowers.

Coach Bob Ernst wasn't surprised when Scott enrolled.

"Actually, he's been almost coming here three different times," Ernst said. "He was thinking about coming here when he was a freshman and then as a junior."

Scott said he transferred because his ties to Boston University had diminished. Most of his friends had graduated and he didn't get along well his last season there with the new coach.

Unlike other sports, crew isn't governed by the NCAA and doesn't require a transferring athlete to sit out a year. Conference rules prevail and the Pac-10 allowed Scott to compete immediately.

The lure of Husky rowing pulled Scott across the country. His earlier success in the sport has sent him to other countries on the national teams.

At the Pan Am Games in Cuba, he got Castro's autograph at the awards ceremony.

"I tried to impress him with my limited knowledge of Spanish and he was correcting me in English," he said.

Another world championship took him to Tasmania, after which he and about 10 European oarsmen relaxed in Cairns, Australia. There, after too much beer one night, they found themselves bungee-jumping - in the nude.

"The lady who was running the business said, `If all of you go naked, I'll let you jump for free,' " he said. "We were all drunk. We're like, `We'll do it! No problem! No problem!' I sobered up really quick when I got to the edge of the platform and realized I was naked and looking like a fool."

He jumped anyway.

The ultimate road trip for Scott would have been to Barcelona last year as a member of the U.S. Olympic team. He spent five months in the Olympic training camp, then was a late cut. He admits he was distraught at not making the team. His mother tried to make the women's team but was eliminated in pair trials. She is now living in Philadelphia and is about to open a delicatessen, Jason said.

The UW's rowing isolation in the Northwest corner of the nation is a change for Scott, who was accustomed to college practices on the busy Charles River in Boston.

"There are so many crews on the Charles," he said. "You always know how fast you are compared to the other boats. Here, you are just clueless.

"You'll be rowing back there, and Northeastern or Harvard will come up and be doing a race piece and you just automatically pick it up and you wind up racing," he said.

The Huskies haven't lost since an autumn practice race in Canada against a University of Victoria crew that included Canadian national-team rowers. The UW beat Victoria a few weeks later in Portland and is undefeated this spring.

In addition to Scott, this year's boat is bolstered with U.S. Olympic rower Scott Munn, who was on leave from the UW last year, Italian Olympian Roberto Blanda and the return of Matt Minas, who took last year off.

This crew might wind up being judged one of the best in UW history.

How good are the Huskies?

"We haven't even come close to our potential," Scott said. "If we do hit our potential, I don't think anyone can touch us."