Cougar Crew History Project: Dave Arnold

CELEBRATING THE FOUNDING OF COUGAR CREW

Dave Arnold, ‘88

In the summer of 1970, Rich Stager, a junior engineering student, watched rowing on television and was so intrigued that he arranged an organizational meeting on campus that fall. Stager’s meeting attracted thirty foolhardy students who founded the WSU Rowing Club with no boats, no facility, no coaches, and no experience. With the encouragement of administrator Ken Abbey and professor Dave Pratt, both former rowers at the University of Washington, Stager spearheaded an effort to build a boathouse.

By the fall of 1971 the boathouse was nearly completed when Bob Orr, another former Husky oarsman, arrived on campus to begin doctoral work in the education department. He had heard that WSU was starting a crew program from a newspaper article. He walked into Ken Abbey’s office and said, “Here I am. I’d like to be involved.” “Great,” Abbey responded. “How would you like to be the coach?” And so it began.

What ensued in the next couple years was nothing less than remarkable. With few funds and handme-down equipment, the first generation of Cougar oarsmen, none of whom had rowed before, took a fledgling program and made it into an enduring organization. They did so in the face of strong headwinds, quite literally. In January of 1972, that first student-built boathouse collapsed during a ninety milean-hour gale that destroyed everything, including Bob Orr’s single scull, and nearly the program itself. But the disaster only steeled the resolve of Bob Orr and his rowers. Some frenzied fundraising, some generous donations, and the patronage of UW coach Dick Erickson allowed the Cougar Crew to race in their first regattas that very spring.

The next spring, on “Black Thursday,” Orr had the team row upriver above the unfinished Lower Granite Dam. In minutes, the temperature dropped drastically and a powerful squall swept up the canyon, catching the crew off-guard. Two boats were lost that day—the Tyee and the Loyal Shoudy. Ironically, a third boat, the Titanic, survived.

All of these obstacles were overcome with grit, more fundraising and, once again, the beneficence of Dick Erickson, who continued to send boats in spite of the Cougars’ propensity to wreck them. When the retired Erickson later visited Pullman to deliver the Keynote at

Class Day, Bob Appleyard, another of those Founding Rowers, asked Erickson, “Coach, we kept wrecking your boats and you kept sending over more…what’s the deal?” Erickson replied, “Well, shit, those alumni of mine kept buying me new boats and I had to make room for them in the boathouse.”

Despite early setbacks, and perhaps because of them, the program continued to grow and thrive, establishing traditions in those first years that we still enjoy today: Class Day, the annual banquet, spring break two-a-days; even the design of Cougar Crew letter jackets. In fact, those traditions were all drawn from Orr’s experience at UW. The generations of WSU oarsmen that followed often did not realize the important role that former Washington rowers— and one Washington coach—played in shaping the early program.

I know I didn’t. By the time I arrived in 1984, WSU had a gold medalist, Paul Enquist, and an established program that could realistically compete against anyone on the West Coast. By then, names like Bob Orr and Dave Emigh were part of distant myth—names emblazoned on racing shells. I had no idea that just a decade before I arrived, the program was in its infancy. It seemed to me like it had existed forever. The traditions I encountered, including familiar sayings, like “We only have a bow man because the rules say we have to,” which Bob Orr told a nervous Doug Kee before the Cougar’s very first race in the spring of 1972, appeared timeless.

This sense of tradition that I immediately perceived, in spite of the newness of the program, and the guise of stability, in spite of the program’s always precarious finances, was a testament to the Founding Rowers, men and women, who were not myths, but determined athletes, like so many who would come after them, eager to achieve something memorable during their time in Pullman. Because of their determination, in just one decade, from 1970 to 1979, WSU crew had gone from an idea in the mind of one engineering student to a robust club that could now boast a national championship (the famed “Meat Wagon”), an All-Pac-10 oarsman (Rich “Flip” Ray), the Pac-10 Coach of the Year for 1979 (Ken Struckmeyer), and a strong women’s program.

This is a history that we can all share and celebrate at the 50th anniversary in the spring of 2020. As that event approaches, I hope you’ll consider writing your own Cougar Crew story. I would love to hear it. I went from rowing at WSU to get a Ph.D. in history at UCLA, published a book with UW Press, of all things, and now have begun researching the history of Cougar Crew. It’s a story of grit, perseverance, personal growth, friendship and shared community. For many of us it was the most meaningful thing we did in college. I look forward to hearing your stories, if you’d be willing to share them.

Email me at darnold@columbiabasin.edu. I look forward to seeing you at the 50th!

Go Cougs!