With help of young, fiery coach, Huskies crew is on the rise

They've been picked to win the national championship when there might be only one senior among them.

No sport is more structured and traditional than rowing, but at Washington, strange things are going on.

"Our freshman coach Michael Callahan is a nuclear meltdown," said Bob Ernst, the rowing coach. "There's a lot more flying round here than there used to be."

Friday night, in the new $18 million boathouse, more than 400 former Washington rowers gathered, ostensibly to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the 1977 crew's win at Henley and the 10-year anniversary of the men's IRA sweep and the women winning the first NCAA championship.

But they were also there in such overwhelming numbers because the Huskies seem on the verge of dominating things like they used to.

Saturday, on the Montlake Cut, the sophomores lost out in their attempt to have a chance to be the first class since 1947 to win the event all four years, losing by a scant half-second to the juniors.

Two seconds back in third were the freshman, well ahead of the seniors.

The sophomores repeating would have been a good story. That group in 1947 forged a dynasty. They won the Class Day four years in a row and were part of nine national titles in four years, including varsity eight wins in 1948 and 1950.

So the Huskies have some talented young rowers, so what?

Well, in the fall they took their young act on the road to the famous Head of the Charles race in Boston where they beat every collegiate crew and in the 3-mile test lost only to the U.S. national team.

Rowing News concluded, after a trip to Seattle, that the Huskies would win the IRA this year even though they haven't done it in a decade during a period when California and Harvard had just been a shade better.

The Huskies are never bad. One of their recent rowers, Brett Newlin, was just named U.S. men's rower of the year. Washington was second in the IRA to Harvard in 2004 and 2003. The Huskies were also second in 1998 and third in 2002, 2001, and 1999. But now they seem really on to something.

Callahan joined Washington as the freshman coach following the 2004 Olympics in Athens, where he was a spare on the team that won the gold medal.

He was born in Hawaii, lived for a while in Silverdale and went to high school in Arlington, Va., where his father worked at the Pentagon. Before that, he was captain of a Trident nuclear submarine at Bangor on the Kitsap Peninsula.

"I broke my hand playing baseball as a freshman in high school and decided to try rowing," said Callahan. "After my recruiting trip here, I knew I wanted to be a Husky, I was home."

He captained the 1996 UW varsity.

His first class, in 2005, was third in the IRA freshman race. Then last year's group won the IRA. The two classes yielded seven of the nine rowers in the boat that won the college competition in Boston.

There may be more good rowers in Seattle than Washington has ever had.

And so much of it can be pinpointed to Callahan's arrival in late 2004, although it is as much about cultivating and developing good athletes on campus as it is recruiting accomplished kid rowers.

The guy, Saturday, in the middle of the junior boat was Drew Fowler, an ex-offensive lineman who helped Kentwood High School to a state football championship and then played at Western Washington.

Two other junior powerhouses were basketball players from Eastern Washington — Andrew Beaton and Derek Devries. Sitting next to them was Rob Gibson, one of Canada's great young rowers who teamed with UW sophomores Max Lang and Will Crothers to win a silver medal for their country in the world championships.

"They are like my first born," said Callahan of his first recruiting class and Saturday's Class Day winners, which was stroked by Toby Dankbaar from Australia.

The stroke in the Head of the Charles race for Washington was sophomore Jesse Johnson from Mercer Island, an accomplished high-school rower and a star wrestler.

Other sophomores, Callahan's second recruiting class, in Boston were Lang and coxswain Katelin Snyder. From the first recruiting class were Gibson, Steve Full from Maine, Devries and Beaton.

Ernst, who has been part of Washington's program since 1974, seems energized by Callahan.

"You know," said Ernst, "my other three assistant coaches did good jobs, but I didn't coach them and they didn't go to school here. There is a lot of purple blood around here. Michael doesn't have to explain to somebody what it's like to be a Husky; he is one."

Callahan has been a tireless worker his first three years.

"He isn't married and is in love with his occupation," said Ernst. "He is on fire to do a good job here, and it has rubbed off on the rest of us. We are really going after the best kids."

Ernst said there is not only more energy in the program, but better interest and support from the former rowers, or the "Good Old Boys" as he calls them.

They share a past, and a future.

Comments for Blaine Newnham: sports@seattletimes.com