University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is presented as both a formidable eastern rowing program and a possible substitute for Washington at the 1936 Olympic Games. Its crew entered the Olympic trials among the strongest contenders, while its position in the funding crisis exposed the unequal resources behind the competition: after Washington qualified, officials warned that the University of Pennsylvania could take its place if Seattle could not finance the trip to Berlin.

Place in collegiate rowing

In the 1920s and 1930s, collegiate crew drew national attention, and the eastern programs occupied the sport’s traditional center of gravity. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton represented the old prestige of rowing; the University of Pennsylvania appears alongside them as one of the eastern schools Washington would have to overcome. At the annual regatta in Poughkeepsie, the University of Pennsylvania was among the leading eastern opponents, not an incidental entrant in a field otherwise dominated by western crews.

That competitive hierarchy had a material dimension. Western teams had struggled for funding and recognition, and transporting crews and delicate racing shells east was expensive. Eastern schools and clubs, by contrast, were regarded as formidable institutions in a sport whose most established traditions were concentrated in the East. The University of Pennsylvania’s prominence therefore marks both a racing challenge and the broader imbalance Washington faced as it tried to move the center of collegiate rowing west.

A rival at Poughkeepsie

During the thirty-eighth annual varsity race at Poughkeepsie, the University of Pennsylvania was among the crews that moved quickly into the lead with Navy and California. Washington deliberately held back, settling into a low rate while the leading boats pressed ahead. The contrast framed the contest’s tactical problem: the early leaders were spending energy in front, while Washington’s coxswain, Bobby Moch, was conserving his crew’s strength and managing the course from behind.

The University of Pennsylvania also figured in the larger route to Olympic selection. Before the 1936 season, Al Ulbrickson understood that Washington would have to beat eastern schools, particularly the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Syracuse, and Columbia, at Poughkeepsie. Success there would not settle the Olympic question: Yale, Harvard, and Princeton might still stand in the way at the trials, along with eastern private rowing clubs. The University of Pennsylvania thus belonged to a sequence of increasingly difficult tests rather than to a single isolated rivalry.

Olympic-trial lineup and race

Six crews competed for the right to go to Berlin: Washington, California, the University of Pennsylvania, Navy, Princeton, and the New York Athletic Club. The organizers divided them into two three-boat heats, with the top two from each heat advancing to a four-boat final the next day. The University of Pennsylvania faced California and Navy in its preliminary. Washington’s crew was made up entirely of undergraduates, but the University of Pennsylvania had replaced three of its eight Poughkeepsie rowers with recent graduates. Those alumni were ineligible for the intercollegiate regatta but were permitted under the Olympic-trial rules, leaving Washington’s athletes unsure how strong the crews they might meet in the final would be.

In the University of Pennsylvania’s heat, all three crews began by rowing hard and at a high rate. For the first thousand meters, the University of Pennsylvania, Navy, and California contended relatively evenly. The University of Pennsylvania then increased its pace and began to move slowly ahead. In the final five hundred meters, however, California surged past both the University of Pennsylvania and Navy, winning by a quarter of a boat length. California’s time of 6:07.8 was ten seconds faster than Washington’s time in its own heat, reinforcing the belief among observers that California had the superior sprinting crew. The account establishes the University of Pennsylvania’s early advance and California’s late pass, but does not specify the University’s final placing.

The Berlin funding crisis

The University of Pennsylvania became a potential replacement for Washington after the trials. At a banquet following Washington’s qualifying victory, Henry Penn Burke told Al Ulbrickson, George Pocock, and Washington athletic director Ray Eckman that the crew would have to pay its own way to Berlin or give up its place. Burke said the University of Pennsylvania had the money and, as the second-place finisher, would be ready to go instead. The ultimatum made Olympic participation depend not only on the result on the water but also on whether the winning crew could raise the fare.

The demand landed especially hard because Washington’s rowers were working-class students, not heirs to industrial fortunes, and the university had already scraped together funds to send them east. Burke demanded $5,000 by the end of the week. Ulbrickson, working with Seattle civic and newspaper leaders, kept the shortage from alarming the athletes while a fundraising campaign gathered support from businesses, residents, and the rowers’ hometowns. By the second day, a certified $5,000 check had been sent to Ulbrickson. Washington could therefore retain its place and prepare to sail for Germany; the University of Pennsylvania’s threatened substitution did not occur.

Significance

The University of Pennsylvania’s appearances connect three different pressures in collegiate rowing: established eastern prestige, the changing composition of crews under Olympic eligibility rules, and the cost of international competition. At Poughkeepsie it belonged to the leading group; at the trials its lineup included recent graduates unavailable for intercollegiate racing; in the funding dispute it stood ready, according to Burke, to replace a qualified Washington crew that could not pay. The episode does not show the University of Pennsylvania taking Washington’s berth, but it makes clear that an Olympic place could be vulnerable even after it had been earned in competition.