Al Ulbrickson Quotes

When Al Ulbrickson arrived on the float, he crouched down next to the boat and, with a cryptic smile, quietly said, “Well done, boys.” Joe had never heard his coach speak in quite that tone of voice. There seemed to be a hint of hushed respect in it. Almost deference.

But if anybody had outwitted Al Ulbrickson, it was his own coxswain—the short kid with his own Phi Beta Kappa key.

•   •   • Don Hume and Roger Morris lay retching in their berths aboard the Manhattan that morning. Al Ulbrickson felt fine, but he was worried about Hume and Morris, laid low by seasickness. They were already the two lightest oarsmen in the boat, and he had planned to make sure they put on some weight during the voyage. Joe Rantz woke up feeling great. He made his way up to the promenade deck, where he found a riot of athleticism unfolding. Lithe gymnasts twirled on parallel bars and uneven bars and took long running leaps at pommel horses, trying to time their precise movements

Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment. Unlike most sports, which draw primarily on particular muscle groups, rowing makes heavy and repeated use of virtually every muscle in the body, despite the fact that a rower, as Al Ulbrickson liked to put it, “scrimmages on his posterior annex.” And rowing makes these muscular demands not at odd intervals but in rapid sequence, over a protracted period of time, repeatedly and without respite. On one occasion, after watching the Washington freshmen practice, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Royal Brougham marveled at the relentlessness of the

you simply kept your eyes open, it seemed, you just might find something valuable in the most unlikely of places. The trick was to recognize a good thing when you saw it, no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear, no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind. George Pocock, Rusty Callow, Ky Ebright, and Al Ulbrickson