The University of Washington campus as we know it was less than ten years old when the first students took to the water to row. The shores of Lake Washington that bordered the 600-acre campus were a natural draw to the students and faculty. Still heavily forested, most access around the lake was by dirt logging roads and trails with travel by horseback (if you were lucky) or foot down to the pristine water. (Click UW Early Years on Union Bay for an overview of campus at the turn of the century.) Yet given the natural limitations of an age when Seattle was striving to be viewed as more than a pioneer town, an estimated 5,000 people showed up on shore and by boat to watch the first intercollegiate rowing race between California and Washington in 1903.

Although it looks very different today, little has changed in the values of the team or the community support that defines Washington Rowing. From the very beginning Seattle embraced – in fact virtually demanded – the sport. The men and women that participated, although not familiar with weight rooms, ergometers, indoor training facilities or sports medicine, trained extensively and with an ethic that lives on today.

The history that is presented here tells the story of Husky Crew supported through photographs. Many of them are your photos – pictures taken by fellow athletes, friends and parents that ended up in scrapbooks or in boxes, but that now tell a story of amateur athletics in the purest form.

We would like you to participate with us in this history. We welcome any personal photographs or memorabilia you can share (see below), and also encourage you to write down a memory or two about the more personally important events that shaped your rowing experience at Washington. Pick out a particular race, a particular event, a particular practice, or a special memory and get it to us. We will post under the year that it relates. Please use the form here to contact us.

This project is an open book. It is a work in progress. We hope you visit it often to read what your classmates and friends have to say and to enjoy the new pictures/videos/stories that will be consistently added. Like walking back into Conibear Shellhouse after being away for a decade, the history of Washington Crew is not about someone else. It is about you – our alums, our friends and our fans. Thank you for a spectacular 120+ (and counting) – years!