Washington’s 1933 rowing victories

Washington’s 1933 rowing victories restored the Washington Huskies rowing team’s standing after a bruising season and carried its challenge to the established Eastern powers. Two April wins over the Olympic-champion California crew were followed by a summer victory over Yale University, Cornell University, and Harvard University at Long Beach—a result that made Washington the de facto national champion.

From Defeat to Recovery

The scale of the reversal is clearest against the previous year’s results. In 1932, Washington’s varsity had lost to California by five lengths at Poughkeepsie, then failed to advance from a preliminary race at the Olympic trials. That August, coach Al Ulbrickson watched California’s Ky Ebright win Olympic gold. The California victories had become more than ordinary losses: they sharpened the rivalry between the two western programs and left Washington with a conspicuous measure of unfinished business.

In April 1933, a fresh, reconstituted Washington varsity answered on California’s home water, sweeping the Olympic-champion California crew on the Oakland Estuary. A week later, Washington defeated California again in a two-thousand-meter race at Long Beach, California. The back-to-back wins changed the balance of the immediate rivalry: the team that had recently been beaten decisively was now taking victories from its chief western opponent on that opponent’s own course.

A Wider Test at Long Beach

The 1933 Poughkeepsie Regatta was canceled because of the Depression, removing the traditional summer contest through which the leading collegiate crews tested themselves. Washington returned to Long Beach, California, instead, to race Yale University, Cornell University, and Harvard University—the leading Eastern programs available to it. Washington edged Yale by eight feet. With the usual regatta absent, the result was not an official national title, but it established the Huskies as the season’s de facto national champion.

Ulbrickson judged the crew in similarly emphatic terms, telling Esquire that it was by far the best team he had ever put together. The press described it as having “plenty of swift.” The season therefore amounted to more than a pair of revenge wins: Washington had beaten California twice, then measured itself against the East and prevailed in a close finish.

The West’s Place in Collegiate Rowing

These results mattered in a sport whose prestige and attention had long been concentrated in the East. In the 1920s and 1930s, collegiate rowing drew large crowds and extensive national press coverage. The annual races at Poughkeepsie could attract as many as 125,000 spectators, with millions more following by radio. Eastern colleges dominated the regatta for much of its early history; when Washington first brought a varsity crew east in 1913, it placed third, startling spectators accustomed to Eastern supremacy.

Western programs had made progress, but their position remained unequal. Their coaches received a fraction of Eastern coaches’ pay, the western crews mostly raced one another, and the schools had virtually no recruiting funds or wealthy patrons. Sending crews and delicate racing shells across the country was expensive, while western rowers encountered condescension as well as curiosity. Washington’s 1933 performance thus carried significance beyond the finish line: it showed that a western public university could defeat California and meet the leading Eastern crews on equal competitive terms.

Significance and Prospects

The season also gave Ulbrickson grounds to look ahead. Promising freshmen were already visible, and the varsity’s results offered a contrast to the previous year’s disappointments. Yet the victories did not erase the larger ambition they intensified. No Washington coach had come close to taking a crew to the Olympics, while California had already won two Olympic gold medals. Ulbrickson wanted to bring Olympic gold home to Seattle; the 1933 campaign made that aspiration seem more attainable, without yet fulfilling it.