Husky Crew -- UW Rowers Recall Gold-Medal Day In '36

Sixty years later, the University of Washington's 1936 crew continues to trade barbs and jokes and give different accounts of its gold-medal performance in the 1936 Olympics.

Seven members of the crew are alive and were honored Thursday at the Conibear Shellhouse.

Coxswain Bob Moch, who still practices law in Seattle at age 81, claims that stroke Donald Hume "passed out" in the championship race. He said Hume was ill but somehow kept rowing then snapped back to consciousness in the final stages of the race and led the Huskies' winning spurt.

Hume said the story is bunk because "how can you keep rowing if you pass out?"

"If a guy passes out in the middle of a race, the race is over, isn't it?" he said. "Bob keeps embellishing that story and each year I'm passed out for longer, but he always manages to get me to come back to consciousness in time to finish the race."

Moch came over to Hume's table yesterday to tell him a photographer wanted the 1936 crew outside for a photo.

"I just passed out, Bob, I won't be able to make it," Hume cracked.

Moch replied, "I want to tell you guys something: He did pass out. I don't care what he says. He's just too damn embarrassed to admit it. He doesn't remember it."

Hume replied, "Listen, if you were sitting there listening to him shouting in your face all the time, wouldn't you shut your eyes?"

The other surviving members of the crew are Roger Morris, Joe Rantz, Jim McMillan, John White and George Hunt. The deceased members are Gordon Adam and Charles Day.

The crew won the Intercollege Rowing Association title, the Olympic Trials, then the Olympic gold medal outside Berlin by coming from behind to beat Italy by 8 feet.

The 1936 crew will ride a launch down the course today on Opening Day.

Notes

-- Yale crews arrived yesterday and it was a homecoming of sorts for Peter Stroble, who spent his teenage years in Port Angeles. Stroble attended Brentwood College (a prep school) in British Columbia and was a member of the Brentwood crew that upset the UW freshmen in the 1992 Opening Day Regatta.

-- The U.S. men's Olympic eight arrived Thursday and worked out yesterday. The Olympic crew will row the Montlake Cut course today after the final race.