As I stood beneath the Aurora Bridge, at the edge of Lake Union, I watched streetlights on Highway 99 wink out for the day. I'd gone there to meet Frank Cunningham, Lake Washington Rowing Club's (LWRC) head coach since 1980.
While I waited, I admired a beautiful sunrise over the lake as Frank finished coaching for the day, at 7 a.m.
A RENEWED ENERGY
Rowers Dan Ayrault and Conn Findlay began the LWRC in 1958 as a way to get into international competition. With about 20 other dedicated rowers, they managed to attract Stan Pocock from the University of Washington (UW) as their coach.
LWRC teams competed in the Pan America Games and at the Olympics and were the only crew not affiliated with a university club to do so at that time.
When I caught up with him, Frank gave me a history of the club as if it had happened to him personally. LWRC 2007 president Marcie Sillman refers to Frank as "the soul of our club."
Frank credits his discovery of rowing with transforming him from a shy, inept kid until "one year in a boat, and I came on like Napoleon." The confidence and career he discovered in rowing has grown into a lifelong love and respect of the sport and the club.
The club nearly foundered in the 1960s, Frank explained, as the original members grew older, advanced in their careers, married and left rowing behind.
However, Eldina Nash, wife of founding member Ted Nash, had asked, "Why not have a woman's crew?" The club might have disappeared altogether, Frank hypothesized, if not for the energy invested by the women.
The wives' crew operated as a token minority back then. Today, women make up a majority of club membership, according to Conor Bullis, the club's only paid employee.
ON THE MOVE
Membership shifted, and so has their clubhouse. The original club crewed out of a shed alongside the canoe house at the UW. When the UW demolished the shed for development in the 1960s, the LWRC began a search for a permanent home that spanned decades.
They attempted to lease city parks land, they looked at an old boatyard as a building site, and in Montlake. They operated out of the Mount Baker bathhouse before the building was deemed unsafe. It was the closest, Frank believes, they ever got in club history to rowing on Lake Washington.
Eventually, they were given a floating shop building, and after some more time, the city gave them a waterway at the end of Garfield Street to moor it.
Barely adequate, the Garfield Street boathouse fit only small boats, and membership quickly outgrew it.
Over the history of the club, rowing had evolved from a sport for very strong men into a pastime for all, and membership exploded as a result.
According to Conor, LWRC membership currently hovers at 300, give or take one or two.
In the late 1980s, LWRC rented a warehouse (nicknamed the Craneway) in the Burke Industrial Center in Fremont. With the warehouse slated for demolition, the property owner offered them buildable property for lease nearby.
In 1995 the LWRC dedicated its boathouse at the end of Northlake Way, with second-floor banquet facilities that look out over Lake Union and our two bridges.
"I must say, people have treated us very kindly," Frank said, summing up a search he actively participated in, "or else we wouldn't be here. We ended up with a site as good as any we ever looked at."
ROWING BASH
In speaking, Frank easily rattles off rowing terms, but when asked, he easily explains. Boats are differentiated by their oars. Sculls are smaller and each person holds two. Sweeps are larger oars, and each member of the crew has one.
They identify boats by the number of oars - singles, pairs, 4s and 8s - and "you're not even talking about the boat anymore."
A peek at the club website, www. lakewashingtonrowing.com, gives a great deal of information but doesn't get you on the water. To get rowing and on the water, the LWRC holds a Rowing Bash monthly from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays; this month, it's on May 26. Registration (and $35) is required, and only takes a call to Conor at 547-1583.
Reaching age 85 this year, Frank stopped rowing "15 years after I thought I'd have to quit." Frank recalls coaching a woman with a leg withered by polio: "She was a great athlete that just had one bum leg."
For a fast-rowing team, it takes strong men that stand at least 6 feet, 2 inches. According to Frank, though, anyone can row: "Anybody. You may not like it, but enjoy and give it a try!"
Kirby Lindsay lived for two interminable years away from the water; she intends never to make that mistake again. She welcomes your comments at fremont @oz.net.
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