INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL 83. Lake Washington Rowing Club Early Years – 1960 Coxless-Four During the 1950s, as the influence of the philosophy of George Pocock became more and more evident in the crews of Tom Bolles, Rusty Callow, Joe Burk and Stork Sanford, and after Stan Pocock’s success working with the Stanford Coxless-Pair3517 and Coxed-Pair3518 and the Washington Athletic Club Coxless-Four3519 prior to the 1956 Olympics, Seattle increasingly became a Mecca for athletes seeking Olympic glory. Georg N. Meyers, Sports Editor of The Seattle Times: “On an August afternoon in 1958, Dan Ayrault and Ted Frost collared an interested listener and made a two-way speech. “‘Rowing talent is going to waste here,’ said Ayrault, then a Navy lieutenant from Tacoma and a Gold Medal winner in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. “‘After four years, a college oarsman has just reached his prime,’ said Frost, a Seattle accountant and 1954 captain of the University of Washington crew. “‘We have provided no means of keeping oarsmen in competition in an area which is the natural place to furnish this country’s best rowers for international events.’ “Ayrault, an ex-Stanford oarsman, and Frost rounded up all the ex-college paddlers they could unearth – most of them ex- Huskies – and formed the Lake Washington Rowing Club.”3520 The 6’4” 193cm 190lb. 86kg Ayrault, Conn Findlay’s 1956 partner in the coxed- pairs,3521 and the 6’4” 194cm 205lb. 93kg Frost immediately recruited Stan Pocock to coach the new LWRC and Harry Swetnam, strength trainer at Shultz’s Gym in downtown Seattle, to supervise land training. LWRC soon accommodated grads from Washington, Cal, Stanford and several Eastern colleges, many of whom were members of the armed forces who had gotten themselves stationed in Seattle in order to train for the Olympics. For their boathouse, they refurbished a lean-to against the back of an old hangar3522 around the corner from the new Conibear Shellhouse. Stan Pocock: “The old lean-to had formerly served as the varsity and lightweight dressing rooms when the UW crews used the hangar [as their boathouse in the 1930s]. LWRC were loaned the use of it and had to clean out all the accumulated gunk and build racks for the shells.3523”3524 3520 Georg N. Meyers, New Crew Capital, No Waste Talent, The Seattle Times, July 9, 1960 3521 See Chapter 82. 3522 It is now known as the Canoe House and is clearly visible from Route 520, Evergreen Point 3517 See Chapter 81. 3518 See Chapter 82. 3519 See Chapter 81. Floating Bridge. 3523 Ted Nash: “Stan did all of the skill-work, and our twenty men simply carried lumber and watched the master at work!” personal correspondence, 2006, 2007 3524 S. Pocock, personal correspondence, 2009 967
