Eric Cohen

The men's history author is Eric Cohen, a 1982 graduate of the University of Washington and longtime member of the Washington Rowing Stewards.

Eric began as a freshman coxswain in high school (Roosevelt) at Greenlake Crew in Seattle, and joined the Washington Rowing team in the fall of 1978.  At the UW he coxed three years in the Varsity 8, was a three-time Pac-10 champion, 1981 consensus National Champion (competing at Henley), First Team All-Conference (1981), and Co-Captain and Inspirational (1982). He graduated from the UW Foster School of Business in 1983.

Following a career in marketing research, product development, and senior marketing at Holland America Line in Seattle, Eric co-founded the web-based on-demand printing company Directflex.com and also MyTeamBook.com. During that time, he joined the Washington Rowing Stewards (1995), founding the website Huskycrew.org (2001) and writing the 100-Year History of Washington Rowing (2003). He also co-founded the non-profit retailer Husky Crew Gear (2001), and established with classmates Al Forney and Al Erickson the Class of '82 Endowed Scholarship for Men's Rowing (2012).  He is also a co-founder (with the late Blake Nordstrom '82) of the non-profit Husky Rowing Foundation (2013) and continues today as an active member of the Rowing Stewards and as the historian for the UW Rowing Team.

Eric was one of the first contacts for Daniel James Brown as he researched his bestselling novel The Boys in the Boat (2013), with Eric's commentary featured in the widely heralded PBS American Experience documentary "The Boys of '36" (2016). Eric was an invited panel member at both the Chicago and Los Angeles pre-release screening events for the "Boys of '36", and was the panel host at the sold-out Meany Hall event on the UW campus in the summer of 2016.

Since 2016, Eric has continued to share the story of The Boys in the Boat, the power of trust and commitment, and the "swing" found in exceptional teams.  He has presented to private audiences large and small on overcoming adversity, building a culture that values courage and commitment, and the transformative change that can happen within a team when trust and a common goal rise above self.  More about Eric and his message is here - www.eric-cohen.com

In 2016 the University of Washington honored Eric with the Dave and Ruth Cohn award for outstanding service and support of University of Washington athletics with the following statement:

ERIC COHEN RECEIVES DAVE AND RUTH COHN ALUMNI MERIT AWARD

“Rowing taught me hard work for a greater purpose, for a sum that’s bigger than the parts,” says Eric Cohen, ‘82.

Eric is the recipient of the 2016 Cohn Award for outstanding service and support to UW Athletics by a former letter-winner.

The Cohen family bleeds purple and gold. Eric’s parents met on a blind date at a Husky basketball game more than 60 years ago. They raised their family in the neighborhood abutting the UW and Lake Washington, where a young Eric would watch Husky rowers with his dad. His wife Heidi’s grandmother rowed on the UW crew team in 1918. Their daughter, Monica, attends the UW and is a pole vaulter on the UW Track Team.

“I had a strong passion for athletics and wanted to play football, but I was five-foot-four in high school and weighed 85 pounds,” says Eric. “I wanted to compete, and rowing was it.”

Living in the crew house, coxing the Varsity 8 to conference championships and making lifelong friends had such an impact on Eric that he joined The Washington Rowing Board of Stewards in 1995 where he serves as the team historian, wrote a history of the program in 2003, and created the program’s original website in 2001. He consulted on the PBS documentary, The Boys of ’36, and the famed book, The Boys in the Boat. Eric and teammate Al Forney founded Husky Crew Gear to raise money for the program, and along with teammate Al Erickson, they ultimately established the Class of ’82 Scholarship Endowment for Rowing. Eric and Heidi are longtime personal donors as well. Eric credits his teammates — and his wife — for enabling him to devote so much of his time and energy to supporting the program he loves.

 “Giving back is almost a requirement after all this program gave me,” Eric says.

Congratulations, Eric, and thank you for all you do for Washington Rowing.
 

A Message from the Men's and Modern Women's History Author

My goal is to write a factual history that also provides an insight into the people that have shaped the sport of rowing at Washington. Thus I encourage any personal experiences or vignettes that might enhance the understanding of the events that have transpired over the years.

The history that is written here has been researched via a number of sources:  the individual sources used in any specific year or decade are documented at the end of each section.  Every effort has been made to corroborate factual data via newspapers, the University yearbook The Tyee, publications on rowing, the internet, and the various writings found in the archives of the VBC. 

However - that does not make everything perfectly correct!  If you see something that is stated incorrectly - particularly in the years you were there - let us know at webdev(at)huskycrew.org.

We also want any pictures or memorabilia, especially of races or of life at the shellhouse or VBC.  If you would like to make an in-kind donation please contact me at the email address below.  As a licensed 501(c)3, your in-kind donations of value to the Husky Rowing Foundation may be tax deductible.  Contact us for more information.

Which brings us to the question of why I decided to do this and publish it here.  People have asked and it's worth explaining.  It is because it was the right place and the right time, both for the program and for me personally.  The Centennial in 2003 provided the perfect backdrop.  My wife, Heidi, who supported me throughout this project, needed very little convincing knowing how much the sport has given me.  We had a window of opportunity in the 2002/2003 timeframe and we took it.

Also, a note of thanks to those who have helped out with this project over the years.  Bob Ernst, Ellen Ernst (who wrote the detailed early women's history), John Bolcer and all our friends at MSCUA, Stan Pocock, Bob Moch, Irma and Al Erickson (who let me dig through Dick's attic), Paul Yount, Lisa Center and the media department at the A/D, Michael Callahan, Lee Corbin, Al MacKenzie, Nicole Klein and everyone who took the time to answer questions -  thank you!

Eric Cohen '82
 

A Message from the Early Women's History Author

There is much myth and misinformation surrounding the women’s crew at the University of Washington – especially in the early years of the twentieth century.  I have reviewed as many primary sources as I could find to discover the most accurate story possible.  These sources include the “Tyee” year books, the daily and weekly University newspapers (“The Pacific Wave” and “The Daily Pacific Wave” and “The Daily”), “The Seattle Times”, “The Seattle Post Intelligencer”, “The Oarsman” magazine, “US Rowing” magazine, “Washingtonian” magazine, and various other rowing and University of Washington letters, books, photographs and magazines housed in the University Archives.   

It was also my intention to include as many names and photographs as possible.  The daily and weekly University newspapers included the names of the women who made their class boats and the Tyee yearbook had some great photographs.  Unfortunately, names were not always adjacent to the photographs in the yearbooks so it is difficult in most cases to place a name to a face.  Hopefully as this history reaches family members we will be able to identify the women more completely.

If you discover something that doesn’t mesh with what you know or what you have experienced, please let me know and I will research and make a change if necessary.  Also, as with any group experience, each participant sometimes has a different remembered reality.  I have tried to be as factual as possible and only added personal anecdotal references when they are confirmed by at least two or three people.  Please email your remembrances and we will post them in a separate section.  Thanks for your support of this project.

In a final word of introduction, and as with any successful organization, the development of women’s rowing at the University of Washington would be directly tied to the administrators, coaches and athletes who participated at any one time.  Women’s rowing would not have survived or thrived in the early years of the twentieth century without the leadership, energy, support and dedication of Jim Knight, Dick Gloster, Hiram Conibear, Lavina Rudberg, Gretchen O’Donnell, Lucy Pocock, and Ethel Johnson.  And women’s rowing could not have been reborn in 1968 and continue to thrive without the vision and energy of women like Joan Bird, Colleen Lynch, Paula Mitchell, Jan Harville, Eleanor McElvaine and men like Bernie Delke, John Lind, Dick Erickson and Bob Ernst.  But, most important, the success of women’s rowing, past and present, at the University of Washington is most directly related to the women who love to row.

Ellen Ernst '83