Bud Moore rowed for champion Husky crew

During his many years of local public service, both as La Conner's mayor and president of the Chamber of Commerce, Bud Moore often showed a knack for getting people to pull together in support of major projects.

Construction of the public restrooms on First Street and the major renovation of Maple Hall into a multi-event community center are just two examples.

Now an active and energetic nonagenarian, Moore embraced that sense of teamwork while attending the University of Washington, where he was a champion oarsman under famed Husky coach Al Ulbrickson, a key figure in "The Boys in the Boat," the inspiring George Clooney-directed film now playing in theaters across the country.

The Husky crew program under Ulbrickson had brought home a gold medal from the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. That triumph was chronicled by author Daniel James Brown in his 2013 New York Times bestseller "The Boys in the Boat," upon which the Clooney movie is based.

Moore was a member of the UW crew that defeated Navy and seven other entrants at the 1953 Inter-Collegiate Rowing Association Regatta at Syracuse, N.Y., winning the three-mile national title race in a time of 16:30.6.

"Rowing is like a fraternity in itself," Moore, who can still easily slip into his Husky letter sweater, told the Weekly News last Wednesday. "It gets in your blood."

A La Conner native, Moore attended high school in Greece while his father, Milo Moore, was tasked with rebuilding the Mediterranean nation's fisheries industry as an official with the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration, an arm of the post-World War II Marshall Plan.

Moore had not rowed competitively prior to enrolling at UW.

"I was tall and lean then," Moore said, flashing his trademark grin. "I weighed about 170 pounds. I was going through Rush Week and the freshmen were asked what extra-curriculars we were interested in doing. I was told I should go down and try out for crew."

Moore proved a quick study.

"My first year they had just opened the new shellhouse, the one that came after the one shown in the movie," he recalled. "It was really special."

To compete at a championship level, Moore said the UW training regimen was beyond rigorous. During the spring season, workouts were held six days a week.

"One of Ulbrickson's big things in the spring was to have the team row out around Mercer Island and back to the shellhouse," said Moore. "That was about 20 miles."

Moore said that in his day there were only two inter-collegiate races per season, one with Cal-Berkeley and the other on the east coast against the U.S. Naval Academy and elite Ivy League crews.

The 1953 trip to Syracuse was memorable on several levels. The UW team traveled two days each way by rail, carrying their George Pocock-designed racing shells with them.

"We took our shells on the train, just like in "The Boys in the Boat," Moore said.

At the time, Milo Moore was in South Korea, providing his expertise to the war-torn country's fisheries program. An admiral he knew bet that Navy would win the national regatta. Milo Moore insisted Washington would win.

"Dad," Moore recounted, "won the bet."

The tradition then was that rowers on the winning team would receive tee-shirts from their counterparts on the other crews, in this case oarsmen representing the Naval Academy, Cornell, Wisconsin, Columbia, California, Syracuse, Penn and Princeton.

Moore's summer shirt wardrobe was greatly enhanced.

The Husky crew and Moore enjoyed extensive Seattle Times coverage during his three years on the team. Moore has collected news clippings in a carefully bound album he keeps in his den at home. There are Times accounts and photos of Moore rowing with his UW teammates. One picture shows Moore's wife of 68 years, Lynn, watching a race from the shoreline.

"In those days," said Moore, "the shore would be lined with thousands of spectators. Being a young college kid, being cheered by people on the shoreline, it would inspire you quite a bit."

Moore said Ulbrickson trained his rowers to have a finishing kick at the end of each race.

"That was Ulbrickson's way," Moore said. "He didn't want you to expend all your energy at the start. He wanted you to save your energy until the end. There's nothing more disheartening than when another boat comes up on you."

Moore learned quickly how essential the team concept – as with other sports – is in collegiate crew.

"I'd get a little nervous at the start of a race," he said, "but then it's all over quickly. You just know the other guys will do their best. It's not something you're doing as individuals. It's the whole boat."

Off the water, Moore enjoyed success in UW classrooms. He earned a bachelor's degree that led to a career as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. Coincidentally, he received his diploma at graduation from the late Bea Gardner of La Conner, then a member of the university's board of regents.

Fast forward nearly 70 years to Moore's recent viewing of "The Boys in the Boat."

"It's well done," Moore said of the film. "There are quite a few shots from the air so that you can see how the oars go in unison."

Moore noted that Husky head football coach Kalen DeBoer had his team view "The Boys in the Boat" prior to UW's wild 37-31 Sugar Bowl triumph over Texas in New Orleans.

"An important player in the movie," said Moore, "was George Pocock, the boatbuilder."

Indeed, Pocock achieved international recognition by providing the eight-oared cedar racing shells which won gold medals again in 1948 and 1952.

Pocock, an Englishman, had learned that indigenous peoples in the Northwest had long used red cedar, which he called "the wood eternal," for their canoes.

The connection between the UW crew's Pocock shells and Native American cedar canoes was celebrated here in La Conner in 1941 with a goodwill exhibition race on Swinomish Channel.

Moore remembers watching it as a youth.

"Nobody really remembers who won," said Moore, who cited its overarching public relations value as a positive cross-cultural event.