Lake Carnegie, Princeton’s protected rowing course, was both an engineered sporting venue and a conspicuous emblem of the resources surrounding Eastern collegiate rowing. In July 1936, its straightaway and crowded banks framed the Olympic trials that sent the Washington Huskies rowing team to Berlin. On its calm water, a working-class crew from the West had to turn qualification into victory—and then confront the question of whether it could afford to go.

Creation and Design

Until the early twentieth century, Princeton crews rowed on the Delaware and Raritan Canal, which ran beside campus. The canal carried coal barges and recreational vessels as well as rowing shells, making it an inconvenient place to train and race. Princeton’s crews wanted a course of their own, away from that traffic.

Andrew Carnegie bought the properties along a three-mile stretch of the Millstone River, dammed the river, and created the lake. The undertaking cost roughly $100,000, equivalent to about $2.5 million in the book’s present-day comparison. Its result was a first-class rowing course: shallow, straight, protected, and visually pleasing, without coal barges crossing the crews’ path. Its design made the water itself part of Princeton’s sporting advantage.

A Course Marked by Class

The Washington crew encountered more than a new stretch of water when it arrived at Princeton in July. The boys, sons of working-class families, entered a world associated with bankers, lawyers, senators, and inherited collegiate traditions. They stayed at the stately Princeton Inn, watched alumni in golf clothes on the manicured grounds of Springdale Golf Club, and visited the Princeton Boathouse, a stone building with Gothic arches. Its elegance contrasted sharply with the airplane hangar that had served as their familiar boathouse.

Lake Carnegie belonged to the same landscape of privilege. Its construction reflected the power to acquire land, alter a river, and secure a private course for a university crew. That setting sharpened a wider imbalance in American rowing: Eastern programs occupied the sport’s established center, while western crews had limited money for travel and competed largely against one another. The University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley had built a heated rivalry and drawn large crowds to their April races, but their athletes still entered a sport whose prestige and resources were concentrated elsewhere.

The Qualifying Heat

On July 4, 1936, the Washington crew rowed its preliminary heat against Princeton and the New York Athletic Club. The six crews seeking a place in Berlin had been divided into two groups; the top two from each heat would advance to a four-boat final. Several thousand spectators watched the qualifying races from the lakeshore and the newly built grandstands near the finish.

Washington started at a rate of thirty-eight strokes a minute. After about a minute, coxswain Bobby Moch directed Don Hume to ease the pace, first to thirty-four and then to thirty-two. The Husky Clipper continued to extend its lead even as the crew slowed. When the New York Athletic Club’s Winged Footers began to challenge near the finish, Moch called for the rate to rise to thirty-eight. Washington crossed the line two and a half lengths ahead. The boys had won comfortably, and the outcome left their attention free to the more consequential test: how California would fare in its own heat against Penn and Navy.

The Final Trial

The final brought four crews to Lake Carnegie: California, Penn, Washington, and the New York Athletic Club. Before racing began, a large white swan blocked Washington’s attempt to back the Husky Clipper into its starting stall. Moch shouted through his megaphone and waved his arms until the bird moved aside, allowing the crew to take its place. The episode briefly turned the careful staging of an Olympic trial into an encounter with the lake’s unexpected obstruction.

The day had begun with thunderstorms and rain over New Jersey, but by noon the clouds had passed. As the crews waited for the five o’clock start, the lake lay mirror-smooth beneath a clear sky, and the heat and humidity built. Spectators arrived in sedans and coupes, spread picnic blankets near the course, and filled the finish-line stands. About ten thousand people gathered to watch a race lasting only minutes, one that would decide which crew’s Olympic ambition survived.

Washington’s early strokes were long and controlled. Hume and Joe Rantz set the pace on opposite sides of the boat, and the rest of the crew followed in unison. Near the 1,500-meter mark, Moch called for the response to California; Hume raised the rate to thirty-six, and Washington moved past the California crew seat by seat. Penn had already set a punishing pace, but its increasingly frequent strokes shortened, while Washington continued to cover more distance with each stroke. The boats drew abreast.

Moch held back the decisive increase until the crews were inside the final 500 meters. He then urged Hume to lift the tempo: the rate climbed to thirty-nine and then forty. For several strokes, Washington and Penn contested the lead; Washington’s bow finally edged ahead. With 400 meters remaining, the Huskies pulled past Penn and opened the gap. They finished a full length in front and still widening their lead. Moch stood upright in the narrow shell and thrust a fist into the air. Penn finished second, California third, and the New York Athletic Club boat crossed well behind, with half its crew collapsed across its oars in the heat.

From Victory to the Berlin Crisis

Lake Carnegie settled the sporting question: Washington had won the final and earned its place on the American Olympic rowing team. But after the crew celebrated at the Loyal Shoudy banquet in the Princeton Inn, a different obstacle emerged. Henry Penn Burke told Al Ulbrickson, George Pocock, and Washington athletic director Ray Eckman that the winning crew would have to pay its own way to Berlin. The Olympic organizations were short of funds, and Burke said that if Washington could not raise $5,000 by the end of the week, Penn could take its place.

The demand exposed the economic distance between the crews as sharply as the race had measured their speed. Washington’s athletes could not finance the trip themselves; the university had already scraped together the money to send them east. Within days, people across the state contributed, from businesses and hometowns to individual donors. Don Hume’s Olympia sent $299.25, and Joe Rantz’s Sequim sent $75. A $5,000 certified check was on its way by the end of the second day of fundraising. The trials at Lake Carnegie had won Washington a place in Berlin; the campaign that followed showed that athletic qualification alone could not secure the journey.