Windermere Cup | Huskies rowing for a cause

Forget purple. The color of the day for the top-ranked Washington men's varsity crew is pink.

The Huskies will row with a pink "W" on their uniforms in today's Windermere Cup to honor all women fighting breast cancer and one in particular: Dr. Kim Allison, who is the primary breast-cancer pathologist at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Allison is the wife of former Huskies rower Ryan Allison, who was a teammate of UW men's coach Michael Callahan at Washington and on U.S. national teams.

"I'm really honored and touched," Kim Allison said Friday from her office, before going down to Conibear Shellhouse to have her head shaved.

For decades, Huskies freshmen have had their heads shaved and Allison joined in, saying, "My hair is falling out anyway because of chemo."

The mother of two was diagnosed with breast cancer in March.

Callahan said he asked his crew about wearing the pink "W," and it agreed. One rower then chirped, "If we're wearing pink, we better be fast."

The undefeated Huskies have been precisely that in earning their No. 1 ranking. And today, they will put it up against the Polish national under-23 crew and 12th-ranked Navy at 11:25 a.m.

Ten minutes earlier, the 15th-ranked Washington women will face crews from the University of Melbourne and unranked Navy in the women's Windermere Cup race.

The two races highlight an 18-race card that begins at 10:20 a.m. with a men's 40-and-over race for crews from rowing clubs.

The races (down a 2,000-meter course, which starts in Lake Washington and ends in the Montlake Cut), precede the annual opening day yacht parade.

The Washington crews are favored in the featured races, and their main competition should be the foreign crews. However, Melbourne lost some of its best rowers to the Australian national team, and a Polish rowing official said some of the best U-23 rowers in his country couldn't make this trip.

The Huskies women are looking to rebound after three consecutive weeks of dual-regatta losses to Washington State, Oregon State and California.

The regatta is one of the world's top rowing spectacles and draws thousands of fans who watch from boats or the shore.

Melbourne coach Ian Wright said he has told his rowers: "This is the biggest audience you will ever have — Olympics included."

Said Callahan: "You can't really experience it until you row down the course. ... You almost have to be in it to feel the vibe of the crowd and all the yachts out there. It's an amazing atmosphere."

Notes

• The Melbourne women's crew has a male coxswain, David Webster, and the Huskies' men's varsity has a female coxswain, junior Katelin Snyder.

• The Navy women's crew has a rower from Seattle — Johanna Mahoney, a sophomore from Lakeside School.

• The last defeat for the Washington's men's varsity in the Windermere Cup was in 2006 to the Russian national team. The Russian eight made rowing news in January when it was disqualified from the Olympics because three rowers had flunked drug tests.

• Asa Bergdahl, a junior from Issaquah who will row bow in the UW men's second varsity eight, is a cancer survivor.

• The Huskies men's varsity will row in the Pocock shell named in honor of Terry Haberbush, a Windermere executive and rowing booster who died of cancer in 2004 at age 71. The Huskies' current winning streak has been in the shell "Chuck Holtz," which joined the fleet last spring.

Craig Smith: 206-464-8279 or csmith@seattletimes.com