Vassar’s Rowing Crew Hosts Alum Regatta and Celebration
Vassar’s rowing crew recently hosted the Alum Rowing Regatta and Celebration Weekend with both current and former rowers and coaches in attendance. The festivities started on Friday, September 19 with a welcome gathering on the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie.
Although inclement weather prevented the students and alums from going out on the water on Saturday morning, the crew did a relay before ending the night with a lively dinner at the Aula. Vassar alums and students engaged in conversation, recounting memories and sharing hopes for the crew’s future.
The event paid homage to the late rower Joe Rantz, a key figure in Daniel James Brown’s award-winning book The Boys in the Boat, which reveals how Rantz and the underdog University of Washington rowing team won gold at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi-controlled Berlin. The book, which focused on the fortitude and grit of a group of working-class students during the Great Depression, was turned into a 2023 movie by George Clooney.
As Rowing Coach Peter Wells noted, “This group of young men, who came from no means at all, figured out how to survive and thrive in the Depression and become one of the greatest crews of all time.”
Wells noted a special connection between Rantz’s team and the Hudson Valley—the Poughkeepsie Regatta. The national collegiate championship held on the Hudson River in 1936, served as the Olympic trials, determining which crew would represent the U.S. at the games. Indeed, from 1891 until 1959, thousands of young men descended upon Poughkeepsie for weeklong preparation and then the race for the Poughkeepsie Regatta. The event drew intense attention around the country and the world.
During a dinner on Saturday night, Judy Willman and Jennifer Huffman, Rantz’s daughter and granddaughter, gave a short talk about him and their experiences assisting Brown in gathering material for the book. “Dad never talked about [rowing] much, hardly at all. None of the guys did,” Willman said. “But my mom, she talked about it a lot, so that was where I got most of the information [shared for the book]…I didn’t want the memory of my dad forgotten.”
Coach Wells said it felt gratifying that Huffman, Ratz’s granddaughter, got to row with returning students and alums twice during the weekend–once during a Friday practice with the varsity women’s team and for a second time on the water that Sunday with alums and students. “My hope was to have Jennifer row on the water her grandpa did,” he said.
“For me, there’s no place in the U.S.—and maybe the world—more sacred to rowing than here in Poughkeepsie,” Wells said.