THE POCOCK GENERATION “In practice we’d be rowing 20 or 22 all day long. We used to row 20 mile workouts. During two-a-days, we used to put in 25 to 30 miles of rowing, and Ulbrickson would be out there in his coaching launch, wearing that felt hat of his and observing every oarsman on the team. “He was an amazing human being, a real leader of men.”2041 Breitenberg had rowed for Lane Tech High School in Chicago. In the spring of 1941, the Washington Varsity stopped over in Chicago on their cross-country train trip to Poughkeepsie, and Don watched them practice on Lincoln Park Lagoon. “I had never seen anything as beautiful as those white blades in perfect coordination.” Right there he determined to row for the UW, but World War II intervened. While Breitenberg was serving as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne, he periodically wrote the Washington coach from the war front. Ulbrickson hand-wrote letters in response, and Don carried them around in his helmet for years until they finally disintegrated. At the end of the war, Don hitchhiked to Seattle, and when he finally met Al Ulbrickson in person, the coach merely said, “Well, you finally made it!” Don was rowing for the UW the following Monday.2042 The 2nd Generation Innovations In its 2nd Generation, the Conibear Stroke took a major turn. According to historian Tom Mendenhall, Ulbrickson and his freshman coach, Tom Bolles, “had started with what Rusty Callow had taught them, which in essence was the great man’s style,” but “as with any style, the original 2041 Breitenberg, personal conversation, 2004 2042 based on Breitenberg, op.cit. University of Washington Crew Archives, Conibear Shellhouse Tom Bolles and Al Ulbrickson Conibear ran the danger of becoming stylized and split into catch, stroke and finish, with perhaps an exaggerated swing forward and at the finish.”2043 That is exactly what seems to have happened at the UW. Time had not been kind to the original Conibear Stroke, just as it had brought down English Orthodoxy and the Fairbairn-turned-Jesus Style. 2043 Mendenhall, Coaches, Ch. XI, p, 8 561
