University of California • Berkeley
University of California Bancroft Library/Berkeley
Regional Oral History Office
Carroll "Ky" Ebright
KY BBRIGHT: CREW COACH FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA AND THE OLYMPICS
Interview By
Arthur M. Arlett
Berkeley
1968
Ky Ebright, Crew Coach, University of California
Photograph by ASUC Photography
All uses of this manuscript are covered by a
legal agreement between the Regents of the University
of California and Carroll "Ky" Ebright. The manuscript
is thereby made available for research purposes. All
literary rights in the manuscript, including the right
to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the
University of California at Berkeley. No part of the
manuscript may be quoted for publication without the
written permission of the Director of The Bancroft
Library of the University of California at Berkeley.
Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office,
486 Library, and should include identification of the
specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Carroll "Ky" Ebright requires that he be
notified of the request and allowed thirty days in
which to respond.
PREFACE
Under a grant from the University of California
Alumni Foundation, the Regional Oral History Office has
been conducting a series of interviews with persons who
have made a significant contribution to the development
of the University of California at Berkeley. The
following interview with Carroll "Ky" Ebright, California
varsity crew coach, is one of this University History
series. An earlier group of interviews included persons
representing a wide range of University activity — Dean
Lucy Sprague (Mitchell), Regent John Francis Neylan,
Professor Stephen Pepper, Dr. Langley Porter, Ida Wittschen
Sproul, and Dean William Wurster. Among those in the on
going series are Mary Blossom Davidson, Dean of Women;
Allen C. Blaisdell, Director of International House; Robert
Underhill, University Vice-President, Secretary and
Treasurer of the Regents; and in athletics, Brutus Hamilton,
Clinton W. Evans, and Carroll M. "Ky" Ebright.
The University History interviews have been benefited
greatly from the expert advice and assistance of Richard
E. Erickson, Executive Manager of the Alumni Association;
Arthur M. Arlett, Intercollegiate Athletic Coordinator for
Alumni and Public Relations; and Verne A. Stadtman,
Centennial Editor.
11
In March 196? Ky Ebright was asked to tape record his
story of the development of the athletic program at Gal.
His reply Indicates the active life he leads in retirement.
"I'll be glad to cooperate on this. I might point out
that we now spend half the time in the Northwest. Will be
here till about June 1, back about September 1. Going to
Europe September 21 to October 18. Ky."
The interview took place on April ?, 196?, with the
interviewing being done by Arthur Arlett, a long-time
friend and co-worker in athletics of Mr. Ebright *s. It
was then transcribed and returned to Mr. Ebright for
checking and approval. Aside from the removal of a few
excess "wells" and "ahs", the final typescript is almost
the same as the verbatim transcript.
The Regional Oral History Office was established to
tape record autobiographical interviews with persons
prominent in recent California history. The Office is
under the administrative supervision of the Director of
the Bancroft Library.
Wllla Baum, Head
Regional Oral History Office
2 July 1968
Regional Oral History Office
Room ^4-86 The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, California
iii
INTRODUCTION
Ky Ebright, then a young alumnus of the University
of Washington and a former coxswain there, was brought
to Berkeley as head crew coach in 1924 and remained in
that capacity until his retirement in 1959- No other
head coach in any sport at the University of California
has served for such a long period of time.
Nor has any other crew coach in the entire nation
matched his record of winning three Olympic championships.
He guided the Bears to victory at Amsterdam in 1928, at
Los Angeles in 1932, and at London in 1948. In those same
years and also in 1934, 1935, 1939 and 1949 he coached
California varsity crews to national (IRA) championships,
while his junior varsities won corresponding honors in
1941, 1947, 1951 and 1959.
Small of stature, as befits a coxswain, he is
affectionately known as "The Little Admiral," but he has
been a giant in his profound influence on the young men
who learn to love rowing. Of all the sports in which
student athletes compete, none is more demanding in
maximum effort and total dedication, or in self-effacement
and working as a team, yet as individuals over the years
iv
men in crew have learned from Ky Ebright and his successors
to compete with equal vigor in the classroom. Their
remarkably high scholastic averages testify to his
teaching.
Arthur M. Arlett
Coordinator for Alumni
and Public Relations
2? June 1968
Department of Intercollegiate Athletics
*f08 Eshleman Hall
University of California
Berkeley, California
CONTENTS
PREFACE 1
INTRODUCTION ill
FAMILY RECOLLECTIONS 1
Growing up In Seattle 1
Parents and In-laws 3
i
Children and Grandchildren 4
Retirement In California and Washington. 1959 5
The University of Washington, 1912-17 7
Interim; The Army and the Steel Mill 9
THE SPORT OF CREW 10
Some Washington Coaches 10
The Washington Board of Stewards and a Coach
for California 11
Being Loyal to the Sport of Crew 13
Catching Up to Washington. 1927 15
The Rowing Hall of Fame 17
The 1926 Freshmen and the 1928 Varsity Crew 18
"California's Crew for California's Olympics , "
1932 21
The Business of Building Shells 22
Crewmen's Morale 27
vi
The Coxswain Has the Savvy 28
Finding Oarsmen 30
The Olympic Games in Mexico 32
Conditioning for Crew 33
California's Ark 36
The Launch, the "Miss It" 37
Crew, the Purely Amateur Sport 39
Coordinating Men in a Crew 41
Size of the Oarsmen, Size of the Shell 4-5
Best and Best in Shells *f?
Mementos 4-9
Boat Travel to the Olympic Games 51
Stowaways 52
Weather for the Olympic Races 55
The Margin of Victory 56
INDEX 59
FAMILY RECOLLECTIONS
Growing up in Seattle
Arlett: This is an interview with Carroll, better known as
Ky Ebright, for thirty-five years the California
varsity crew coach. The date, April ?th, 196?.
Ky, this is going to be a very informal
proceeding. Before we get into other things: how
did you come by the name "Ky" when you started out
with Carroll?
Ebright: Well, it was a nickname I've had a long, long time,
and I really don't remember myself, but it was, I
think, partially a contraction of my name, Carroll.
Arlett : Practically everyone knows of Ky, but not everybody
knows Carroll. Anybody that ever went to the
University of California, I guess, knows of Ky
Ebright. And a lot of people in places like
Amsterdam, London, and other way points. Ky, I'd
like to find out a little bit about your own family,
that is, your father and mother, and if you had
Arlett: brothers and sisters, and Just a little bit of baok-
drop on your personal beginnings.
Ebright: Well, I'm an only child. I'm a member of the Society
of California Pioneers, which means that my grand
father was a Forty Niner. He came across the plains
in 18*4-9, and was up in the Marysville area for ten
years. Then he went back to his home in Ohio. My
father was born in Xenia, Ohio. And then shortly
thereafter they homesteaded on a farm in Kansas,
where my father was raised. Well then, after my
father grew up he left home and for awhile, in the
Eighties, he was in San Diego, in business. And
then he went back East, and I was born in Chicago.
Things were kind of dull in that year, in 189^ »
a depression time. Then the big gold strike in
Alaska. In ninety-eight, Seattle was a lively area,
so my father and all of us migrated out there in
1900. And I went to school there, went on to high
school and the University of Washington.
Arlett: What high school did you go to?
Ebright i The name of the school was Broadway High School, a
central high school, in the middle of Seattle.
Parents and In-Laws
Arlett: Ky, Jumping ahead a bit I was interested in hearing
more about your parents and a coincidence of age
and events for your parents and your wife's parents.
Ebright: My parents were very long lived. My father died
at the age of 96, and my mother at the age of 93 »
both of them in 1959 » the same year that I retired.
And Kathryn's parents were long lived too. Her
father was 91, her mother far into her 80 's. So our
children have a pretty good heritage. Yes, and my
parents and Kathryn's parents were friends, as a
matter of fact, before she was born.
Arlett: Did you two both go to the University of Washington?
Ebright: No, Kathryn went to the University of Oregon. She's
considerably younger than I am. But her brother
Walter, Walter Doty, editor of Sunset magazine for
a long time —
Arlett: An old friend of mine.
Ebright: He was a classmate, a neighbor of ours. His family
were neighbors of ours, and he was a classmate of
mine in grammar school, high school, and college.
So my parents and Kathryn's parents were friends,
long long ago.
Children and Grandchildren
Arlett: Have any of the other members of your family, that
is, any of your children, been involved in crew or
in other forms of athletics?
Ebright: No. I have two children, a son and a daughter.
My son went to Cal, graduated in 195^« He went out
for basketball manager, but he was not big enough
to be an athlete, nor small enough to be a coxswain.
My daughter Margaret was a pretty good swimmer and
likes to ski.
Arlett: Well, now you've got yourself some smaller Ebrights.
Ebright: Oh, yes.
Arlett: Grandchildren.
Ebright: My son who's living in San Francisco has three
daughters. The oldest one's six years old. Both
my son and son-in-law are attorneys. My son in
Oakland, my son-in-law in Medford, Oregon. Our
daughter has four children, three boys and a girl.
The oldest one is seven. So we've got seven young
grandchildren.
Retirement In California and Washington. 1959
Arlett: You talk about your children's having a chance of
living a long time. I couldn't help notice as I
came to your home some of the work you've been
doing, and it doesn't look to me like you've slowed
down any. How do you spend your time in retirement?
Ebright: There's always stuff to do. As I say, we live in
the Northwest on our country place there, near
Seattle on the shore of Lake Sammamish. It's a
pretty good-sized area, and we work on that, hard,
and then this is a pretty big area here, and so it
keeps us busy. And then, anybody interested in real
estate has plenty to occupy both his thoughts and
muscles.
Arlett: You might Just give us a thumbnail idea of what
you've been building down below your house here.
This is a real project I
Ebright t We live in a place [in Berkeley] that we have lived
in for thirty years, and there's a canyon goes
through, and there's a bridge across the canyon.
I built a bridge across it thirty years ago which
has recently rotted out. And then there were some
Ebright: big bay trees around it that were hanging out over.
They're about thirty Inches In diameter at the butt.
So before I built the new bridge I had to cut the
bay trees. My chain saw does It very easily, but
It takes some doing. And so I got those down, and
now I'm building the new bridge, and Arthur, you
saw that as you came up to the house.
Arlett: But I understand you and Mrs. Ebright carried those
girders up yourselves, up the creek?
Ebright: Oh, yes, we carried those up this morning. We decided
not to make just a straightforward bridge, but to
make a kind of a cantilevered arch. I put the redwood
4x6 pieces together down in the garage, and then
we had to struggle up with them this morning. We
figure that the more you do, why, the more it keeps
you going. (Laughter) We don't try to get out of
work. We try to figure out ways to make more of it
for ourselves.
Arlett t Are you very active in other organizations, apart
from the University? Have you been active in things
like Rotary or Lions or Kiwanls?
Ebright: No, no, I've never been active in any of those things.
As a matter of fact, the only organization that I
really belong to, I think, is the Order of Daedalians ,
Ebright: which is World War I flyers, and we got a lot of fun
out of that. Matter of fact, we went to a meeting
of it up at Travis Air Force Base Just a week ago.
But that's the only thing. They have meetings all
around. They're real nice people, and some have
become old friends now, and we enjoy it very much.
I flew up to Alaska with them in 1963, and that was
a wonderful one-week trip.
Arlett: What kind of planes were you flying and then
instructing in?
Ebright: Jennies. JN 4 D's, they call them Jennies. Much
different from the current thing, you know.
The University of Washington 1912-17
Arlett: You were at the University of Washington for what
years then?
Ebright: I went there in the fall of 1912, and I was there
until the spring of 191?. I attended college for
four and a half years. I went my four years, but I
had a few more units, and so I worked on the Seattle
waterfront for a fall term, and came back in the
spring, and was coxswain on the crew again in 191?.
8
Arlett: How did you happen to get started In crew In the
first place? I suppose Seattle was always a sort
of a springboard to it?
Ebright: I didn't really know anything about it. The only
thing I remembered about it was when my dad and I
and another fellow went out fishing one time on
Lake Union, when I was a little bit of a kid, and
the Washington crew went by, with a big splash and
a clatter. It was quite a thing, you know, in those
days, to see those crews go by. Then, when I took
the physical examination, as a freshman, like all
the kids do, I remember I weighed 113 pounds, and
the fellow that was examining us said, "That's about
the proper weight for coxswain.11 Well, it had never
occurred to me, you know, but I was interested, and
started thinking about it, and sure enough, when the
call came, I went out for freshman coxswain.
Arlett: Did you in those days ever dream that you'd eventually
get around to coaching the big fellows here on these
crews now?
Ebright: Oh, no, no, never. Or even far later, you know, never.
Arlett: What was your major?
Ebright: Well, I was in what you would now call business
administration. Then it was part of economics.
Arlett: So you Intended to go into business of some kind?
Ebright: Yes.
Interim; The Army and the Steel Mill
Arlett i How did you happen to get into the coaching part
of it?
Ebright » Well, you see, I graduated in 1917. The First World
War was Just starting, but there were a few months
before I went into the service. My uncle had been
employed, had been friends with the people that ran
the Pacific Coast Steel Company, now part of
Bethlehem Steel, a rolling mill there. So it was
logical for me to go there and apply for a Job. And
I worked there six months, from the time I graduated
until about the first of the year, when I came down
to Berkeley "Ground School for Military Aviation."
Then down to North Island — learned to fly down in
San Diego, and then went to San Antonio, Brooks Field,
learned to be an Instructor; went to Call Field,
Wltchita Falls, Texas, and served as an instructor
until the war ended.
10
THE SPORT OP CREW
Some Washington Coaches
Arlett » And then you went back to Seattle?
Ebrlght: Then I went back to Seattle, and went back to my old
Job there in Pacific Coast Steel Company. I was
interested in the Washington crews, and was out there
helping them informally some with the coaching,
although none of it formally, and Just kept in touch.
That was in 1919.
Arlett: Who was the head coach at Washington then? The
University coach?
Ebrlght: My coach had been Hiram Connibear, and he was killed
by falling out of a plum tree in the fall of 1917 » so
I was the coxswain of the last crew that he coached.
Then the war intervened, but it was only a short
time, you know, one year, and Ed Leader became the
coach.
Arlett x Two famous names.
Ebright: Yes. Ed coached there until '22. He went to Yale
in '23 and Rusty Callow took over at Washington. I
was kind of helping those fellows out there, Informally,
you know. I suppose you'd like to know how I happened
11
Ebrlghtt to come down here.
Arlettt I certainly would.
The Washington Board of Stewards and a Coach
for California'"
Bbrlghti Well, you know, California hadn't been having very
good luck with the crews. Washington had been
winning pretty regularly. And Stanford had dropped
out, in 1920. But California still had hopes of
competing, and having a good crew. I was a member
of what they called the Board of Stewards. Well,
that's a term--they have it in the East — alumni and
older people who are interested in the crew and kind
of help out with the handling of it, you know. There
were two other fellows, Ward Kumm, who was the captain
and stroke of the crews of which I was coxswain in
1916 and '17, and a fellow named Brous Beck, who was
very Interested in rowing. They were the principal
ones in this Board of Stewards.
California decided that they'd make one more
stab at it, the crew, you know, and as long as
Washington had been doing quite well against them,
they decided to come up to Washington and look for
12
Ebright: a coach. And Ward Kumm — there's his picture right
there, he Just passed away a year ago — they were in
touch with Brous Beck and Ward Kumm. And Lute
(Luther) Nichols, Cal graduate manager, came up
there. Yes, Lute Nichols came up, in the fall of
1923, and he was staying at that so-called New
Washington Hotel. He and Brous Beck and Ward Kumm
and I went to lunch together, and we discussed the
possibility of me coming down here. Now I don't
remember whether we discussed the possibility of
either Ward or me, or Just me. Because I know Ward
came down, and talked to some of these people. He
was an attorney in Seattle, and whether they really
wanted him to come or not, I don't know. But he
didn't want to come anyway. He wanted to practice
law in his home town. Which he did, all his life.
But anyway, that day we had lunch, afterward we
sat there in the room and discussed the matter all
afternoon; then we all three came down in the
elevator together, walked out on the street, and the
newsboys were hollering extras. The extra was the
Berkeley fire. So I know to the day when I first
talked about coming down here to coach. It was that
day of the Berkeley fire, which was September l?th,
13
Ebright: 1923. So then the arrangement was made, and I came
down here about the first of the year, looked the
place over, and kind of talked to them again. And
then, on the first of February 192^ I came down and
took over the crew.
Arlett: Had California given up the sport during the time
when you were coxswain, or were you competing against
California at the time?
Ebright: Oh, California never gave it up. Stanford did.
Arlett: Stanford gave it up?
Ebright: Stanford gave it up, in 1920. But California continued,
and competed against Washington every year, I think,
except that one war year of 1918.
Arlett : It probably would have been the Spring of '18.
Ebright: When they didn't have the crew. But they were back
again in '19. '17 and '19, and so forth.
Being Loyal to the Sport of Crew
Arlett: Now, of course, here's the $6^,000 question, in a
way. You had gone to the University of Washington,
and the rivalry between the California and Washington
crews has always been, you know, so Intense. I've
Arlettt been curious how long it took you to become a con
verted Californian.
Ebright: Well, in a way, you know, we were always taught by
old Hiram Connibear to be loyal to our own institu
tion, but we were taught also to be loyal to the
sport of crew. And we were very interested in not
having California succumb, you know, quit. Because
if that had been true, then the closest crew competi
tion would have been Wisconsin, a long ways away, and
meant the possible death of rowing at Washington too.
And so some of us really thought that we were, in a
way, helping the Washington crew; now actually this
is no bull, by coming down here and maybe letting
the California crew survive. Of course I felt that
way, and Ward and Brous and some of them did; but
there were others there that didn't.
Now, it never occurred to me that there would
be such a vicious and bloody feeling very shortly.
And if I had realized that I don't believe I'd ever
have tackled it. But, after you get into it, why,
you've got to go for what it's worth, and stick it
out. It was really quite an uncomfortable thing
there for a long time because it was a really
vicious competition. The thing was, here California
15
Ebrlght: didn't have much of a crew, and Washington had been
beating them regularly. I came down here in 1924
to try and make something out of it. And Washington
won the Poughkeepsie Championship in '23, '24, and
'26, and took second in '25. So that's what I was
bucking up against, you know. And it was tough.
Arlettt Well, you not only bucked up against it, you caught
up with it pretty soon too.
Catching Up to Washington, 1927
Ebright: Yes, we finally won from Washington in 192?. So
there was '24, *5» and '6 where the going was pretty
tough. And I didn't know whether I was going to
survive or not. And my employers there, I'd discussed
the matter with them before I left, with my boss there,
Mr. Kllngan. Course, the idea of college athletics
and professional athletics in that day was much
different than it is now, you know, and professional
athletics was sort of looked down upon. And he said,
"Well, if it was professional athletics, I'd say,
don't do it, but as long as it's college athletics,
why, you'll meet people there that will be fine people,
16
Ebright: and will be friends of yours all your life." And
then he said, "It isn't as if you're somebody that
we were trying to get rid of here. And so you can
try it out, and if doesn't work, why, we'll be glad
to have you come back."
Arlett: Who was President of the University of California
at that time? Was Wheeler still ?
Ebright: William Wallace Campbell. Dr. Barrows had been an
interim president, but Campbell had Just taken over,
Just about at that time.
Arlett: Then, of course, he wasn't on too long either before
Sproul came in, I guess.
Ebright: No. A matter of a few years there. President Sproul
probably came in about 1930.
Arlett: He did, in the fall of '30.
Ebright: I came in 1924, so Campbell was president for several
years, I know that.
Arlett: Now, you know, I was a cinch to come to this matter
of that Olympic Crew of '28, which is about to have
quite an event. I'd rather have you tell about it
in your own words.
17
The Rowing Hall of Fame
Ebright: Well, they're going to be inducted into the Rowing
Hall of Fame at the time of the National Regatta at
Syracuse, in June, this year. Two of the boys — there
are six still living — two of the boys are already
members of the Hall of Fame, and I am a member of it,
so that'll mean that there'll be four new ones of
them. But all of us will be there.
Arlett: I understand that all but the two fellows who have
passed on will be there, those two being Bill
Thompson and —
Ebright: Bill Thompson, Number Six man, and Jack Brinck, the
Number Two man.
Arlett: This is going to be quite a year for things like
this, I mean with that '28 crew of yours having this
happen, and then your '32 crew, I believe, is —
Ebright: They're going to go en masse up to the Washington-
California race on the 28th, 29th of April to
celebrate their win up there, when they won from
Washington by 18 lengths, the widest margin of any
crew race between Washington and California in
history.
Arlett: And it happens also to be thirty-five years, sort of
18
Arlett: symbolic — one of those numbers for reunions.
Ebright: That was 1932 to 1967, yes.
Arlett: This Is a marvelous thing, and I suppose you have
many memories. In that 1928 year, when you first
won the Olympics, what were the rough spots along
the line? I mean, you had made some tremendous
progress in two years there, apparently.
The 1926 Freshmen and the 1928 Varsity Crew
Ebright: Well, we didn't have too much of a crew until the
1926 freshmen. That was Pete Don! on and Fran
Frederick and Bill Thompson and Jack Brlnck, all
four of those fellows were members of that freshman
crew, '26 freshman. And that was the basis of our
'28 crew. Then those fellows were all in the '2?
varsity, and went to Poughkeepsie, but we didn't win.
We took third. We went to Poughkeepsie in 1926.
That was the first year for a California crew to go
in my time. One had gone before, in 1921, and had
taken second. But in 1926 we took all three of them,
our freshman, our Junior varsity, and our varsity.
The freshman, that was the good crew, with Pete Donlon
Sbrlghtt and those fellows, took second. Our J.T.'S took
third. And oar varsity took sixth.
and those fresfaHen were, aooi men, yoo know, wz we
had a ?ood rarslty, but we couldn't qwlte aaxe it
nHck there, we took third. A*rd thes, of course,
everybody was eyeing this 1923 t>i2f7, you know. Anc
we were working for it, thinking about it. And taer
we won all the races, beat *as&ln?toei. ¥e '*»%d beatez.
the* in 1927. That was down here. Ve'd won by 9V±te
a aargln, fiTe or six lengths. 7-.r- 1- '25 It w=^
up there, and it's tougher uc there. 3ut we woz., rj,
oh, something like a lerxth, 1 r^ess.
That was the t:_— e" -_^^le, and the
, and at Poo^hkeepsls _r^ke toe rt^cr^.
that had stood for a Ions, leer tlae. I tfelak It had
been since 1901. So tbat was az: en^r-jTs^-arezT trr.
and the guys really began to be ezsthoslastie a-^tf
optimistic about it. And then Tale, yon see, with
that saae Sd Leader as coach, h%d be*- : - •? Clrirri:
representative la 192*^ at Paris, and tiej were the
faTorlte at the Olyaale trials la Pniladelrtla.
we went down there, and we
Arlett: who won it in
20
Ebright: 1924. Ed Leader's time was 1924. In 1920 it was
the Navy with Clyde King, now Admiral Clyde King of
Stinson Beach, and those fellows. 1924 was Ed
Leader and Yale. The most prominent member of Ed
Leader's 1924 Crew is the bow man, Dr. Spook.
Arlett* Oh. (Laughter) He's known in even more parts of
the world than you are, I guess. (Laughter)
That must have been a tremendous thrill, to
to back there, I mean in what seems like a relatively
short period of time, to go from scratch up to the
Olympics.
Ebright z It sure was. Yes. It took some doing, though, you
know. There at Philadelphia, where we had three
races, the first one was against, I think it was
Columbia. They had taken second at Poughkeepsie.
And we won from them quite easily. Maybe Princeton.
Anyway, one heat was Princeton, and the next one was
Columbia, and then the final one against Yale. And
of course Yale was the big favorite, but we felt like
we could do it, and we did.
Arletti Then you went along for another four years, and lo
and behold you went down to Los Angeles, Long Beach,
or wherever it was.
Ebright: Well, these things don't happen automatically, you
21
Ebright: know. And we'd been working on that since 1928.
That was our chance to get out of the woods, and
these boys were good boys, you know, that I had.
And they responded. But you have to have some
angles, and this Olympic thing appealed very highly,
"California's Crew for California's Olympics," 1932
Then, in 1932, you had to have something, and I
dreamed up the slogan: "California's Crew For
California's Olympics," and we worked on that, and
it had a good appeal, you know. In other words, we
got more good out of it than any other U.S. crew
would have. Because all our people were from right
here in our own back yard.
Arlett: Looking back on it, of course, this is all hindsight,
in a way, but was one of these more satisfying or
more exciting than the other?
Ebright: Of the wins, you mean?
Arlett: Yes.
Ebright: Well, I think that, if you look back, that winning
at Poughkeepsie the first time was the most satisfying.
Arlett: How many crews were there at that time?
22
Ebright: At Poughkeepsie?
Arlett: Yes.
Ebright: I think there were only six. A far cry from now,
when they have fifteen. But still, to us it was a
big thing, you know.
Arlett: Now we have nineteen crews on the Pacific Coast.
Ebright: Correct. In those days, when I first came down here
we had a varsity and freshman race with Washington.
That's all. That was all the rowing activity on
the coast. Then a couple of years after I came we
got the junior varsity going, and then a few years
later Stanford came back in, and then Oregon State
came, and then gradually all the Southern California
ones.
The Business of Building Shells
Arlett: Well, even back in those days the California crew,
the shells and the equipment, things like that, were
those made for the California crew? Or had we
v>
inherited some of them from some place else, even
as we since have donated equlnment to others? I was
curious about the beginnings.
23
Ebright: I think originally California got some shells from
Cornell, about 190? but that was long before I came.
And the equipment that we had when I came was
adequate. Seven eights. It was all made by George
Pocook up in Seattle, who made the Washington shells,
and still makes them for most of the colleges now,
you know.
Arlett: Is he still alive?
Ebright: He still is. George Pocock is living, and works
every day, hard. But his son, who was an oarsman at
Washington, he's now perhaps 35 to ^-0, he works in
the business too, and they've got a fine business.
Arlett : George Pocock must have been pretty young, then, when
he started making these.
Ebright: Yes, he was. He's only two or three years older than
I am. And he first made shells when I was an under
graduate, so you see, he was quite a young fellow.
Arlett: Wonder how he got on to that.
Ebright: We haven't got time to tell everything, you know.
Arlett: Oh, we have time enough to hear the things that are
interesting.
Ebright: You know, his father was a boat man at Eton College
in England. He built shells for them, and helped
with the boating of the kids, and I don't know if
Ebright: he coached, but anyway, just helped keep it going,
and he was a competent boat builder.
Well, George and his brother Dick, his brother
Dick was a little older, three or four years older
maybe, about that time, that must have been around
'15, 1914 or *15, they decided to migrate from their
home in Eton, in England, to Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada, new country. And they didn't
know what they were going to do, of course, and they
didn't have any idea of building shells, because,
you know, there certainly wasn't much of that activity
out there in the woods. But they brought along some
little slides and stuff, and of course their tools.
They were competent workmen by this time. Their
father had taught them. And the Jobs that they got
up there in Vancouver weren't very satisfying. They
heard of Washington crews so they began thinking
about getting into their old trade of building shells,
and they came down to Seattle to talk to Connibear.
Sure enough, they arranged to come down there, I
think that was 1915 » and build two shells for the
University of Washington.
So, this George Pocock has been building the
shells there ever since.
Arlett: Does he build other kinds of craft too? I mean,
there wouldn't be enough universities and colleges
rowing in those days, I wouldn't think, to —
Ebright: But there are, by this time he makes oars, and
send them all over the world, you know. And he has
done other things. During the first war there was
no activity, and so he worked for Boeing at that
time, building planes, where it was wood work similar
to the shells. Well, that's another story, and I
won't tell that one.
Arlett: (Laughter) Go ahead and tell it.
Ebright: I was going to say that Boeing was not very affluent
in those days, and so in lieu of paying him and his
brother Dick, they gave them each a hundred shares
of stock. And shortly thereafter Dick sold his
hundred shares, but George kept his, and not very
long after they split it eleven for one. So clear
back there in the teens he had 1100 shares of Boeing.
Now I don't know how many he still has, but I went
through the library, the records, just for fun, and
if he had kept those shares he would now have, I
figured, around seven or eight thousand shares of
Boeing stock. I was talking to him last summer when
Boeing stock was going up fast, fast. The day before
26
Ebright: it had gone up, oh, a couple dollars or so I said,
"Gee, George, you had a pretty bad day yesterday.
You only made fifteen or twenty thousand dollars."
And he laughed, and he said, "You know, I'm going
to be lousy rich." (Laughter) This year Boeing
stock has ranged between 62 and 112.
Arlett: Must be a wonderful feeling for a boat builder.
Ebright: He works hard every day. He works the full day's
shift Just like the rest of the workmen.
Arlett: Hmmm. Well, back in those days there was a time
when California crews had men on them who were in
other sports there for awhile. I think of Dan
McMillan.
Ebright: Yes. Well, Dave DeVarona was about the last in
1939.
Arlett: He was the last one.
Ebright: Yes.
Arlett: But did you have practice the year around, practically,
like they do now? It seems to me that it starts
pretty early in the fall.
Ebright: Oh, yes. We had fall practice right from the time
I came. We had fall practice and spring practice.
Well, I remember old Andy Smith was a little
apprehensive. He didn't want us to steal any of
27
Ebrlght: his men, but he was very friendly. In those days
there was more of being on more teams than now.
It's still practical, I guess, for the proper people,
and Dave DeVarona, you know, he's a unique person,
only one in the world that ever rowed on a winning
Poughkeepsie crew, and played in a winning Rose Bowl
football game.
Arlett: That's quite a combination.
Ebrlght: It sure is. He wasn't a Phi Beta Kappa, but his
daughter Donna won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Arlett: Well, you can't have everything.
Ebright: No. (Laughter)
Crewmen's Morale
Arlett: There's one thing about crew that's always intrigued
me, Ky, and you're the man who's pretty much made it
that way at Berkeley. Maybe it's this same way at
other places, but the dedication of the fellows that
go out for crew seems to carry right on with them
all through their lives. I mean, they're the most,
I don't know what to call it, devoted, or loyal. I
don't know what the word is. They have a tremendously
28
Arlett: high morale of their own, it seems like. Is it
because you attract that kind of people, or do
they make it this way?
Ebright: There's Just something about the sport, I think,
that attracts that kind of people. And there's
something inherent in it that kind of stimulates
that sort of a feeling. And I think it's pretty
much the same way with all crew men everywhere.
Arlett i There's no room for selfishness in a boat with
eight men.
Ebright: Yes, that's right.
Arlett: Pulling together. You can't be a lone ranger.
Ebright: No, no, you can't.
The Coxswain Has the Savvy
Arlett: I'd like to get back to this other thing. Are
there very many men who, like yourself, have gone
on from being a coxswain to being coaches in this
sport?
Ebright: Well, yes. Of course when I came, you know, Buss
Nagler came with me from Washington as my assistant.
He was freshman coach for many years. He was a
29
Ebrlght: coxswain. And the coach at Harvard, for many years,
Harvey Love, was a Washington coxswain. A kid that
coached the freshmen at Yale, Don Grant, was a
coxswain from Washington. And others. There 've
been quite a few. Quite a few.
Arlett: In learning the things that the coach has to be able
to teach the oarsmen, and most of your oarsmen have
to be taught because they've never done it before,
the coxswain must have to absorb an awful lot of
what is told to the oarsmen in order for him to
impart this knowledge to others.
Ebright: Yes. Well, what I would say is that the coxswain
really is the more logical one to be a coach because,
in a way, his Job is coaching those men, stimulating
them and correcting them. And of course the oarsman
himself, he Just sits there and tries to do it, but
he doesn't tell the other fellow, so, the coxswain
really is the logical one. Now I think, from a
psychological point of view, a coxswain is not at
an advantage. A big fellow, the youngsters look up
to more, you know, and he has Just a more massive
opportunity to project himself. But really, I think
the coxswain generally savvies better.
Arlett: There's still a lot of repartee between the coxswain
30
Arlett: and the oarsman on that 1928 crew of yours.
Ebright: Yes. Oh, yes. (Laughter)
Arlett: Do you see much of these fellows that were on that
crew?
Ebright: Oh, yes, I see them frequently, here and there, run
into them. For Instance, last night we went to the
Charter Day Banquet. We had discussed it with Dave
Dunlap, and his wife, Elizabeth, at Alumni Crew Day,
so we went together last night, Just like that,
Arlett: I imagine you see Pete Don! on from time to time.
Ebright: Oh, yes. We're friendly, and run into them here and
there.
Arlett: He looks like he'd still get out there and row.
Ebright: Yes, he does. He looks like a sophomore.
Arlett: Oh, isn't that the truth, though? (Laughter)
Finding Oarsmen
Arlett: The other thing about your sport is the question of
the way you round these fellows up. A moment ago
you said, it attracts that type of man, but that
type of man, in the first place, probably doesn't even
know about it. When a man comes to the University of
31
Arlett: California, he may not be familiar with crew, and
hasn't been someplace where it was popularized,
and yet you people always seem to find a way to get
these men that you need.
Ebright: Well, I think the oarsmen themselves, they watch,
that's part of their preoccupation, as they go
about the campus, to find kids that look like they'd
be good oarsmen. And then, of course, we're always
at the registration line. We check them, you know,
and talk to the tall ones, and get their names and
addresses, and follow them up, and try to get them
down there and get them interested.
Arlett: I guess that's become a little more difficult with
them registering by mail.
Ebright: Yes. Yes, it has. (Laughter) You have to depend
on your own people talking to the fellows in their
classes, and bring them down, get them interested.
Arlett: Is it possible in this sport for one or two to stand
out above the others? Even In a crew that is well
coordinated, are there certain men that are above
others?
Ebright: It's a difficult thing, but of course the stroke and
the coxswain are always the ones that you think of
the most. The strongest fellow Is generally in the
32
Ebright: middle of the shell. But really, they all do
exactly the same all the time, and it is hard to
single any out. And yet the stroke is the fellow
that is really the key. You've got to have a good
stroke.
Arlett: I think I heard Marty McNair say the other day that
he has one tremendously strong man on this year's
crew, and he's having a little trouble finding some
body almost as strong to put on the other side.
Ebright: Well, that's better than to not have one strong one,
anyway.
The Olympic Games in Mexico
Arlett: Have you been down to see what the crew facilities
are in Mexico? Do you know what they're going to be
doing about that?
Ebright: We were down in Mexico two or three years ago, but
we didn't get out to Lake Xochimilco. We tried to
find it one day — we were driving — but we never made
it, so I don't know.
Arlett: Well, you know, there's been so much controversy
about altitude.
33
Ebright: That's right.
Arlett: Is this going to be a real problem to the oarsmen?
This is a two thousand meter event only a mile and
a quarter so I suppose it isn't quite as bad.
Ebright: I think it takes a little while to get acclimated,
but it'll be as fair, for the ones that come from
a lower altitude, for one as the other. Of course,
the man that wins the marathon and has won it twice,
now, is from Addis Ababa. He's probably a sure
winner this third time because Addis Ababa is in a
high country.
There are all kinds of studies on it, and they
say that it's a difficult problem. We didn't notice
too much difference, but of course you don't do any
violent exercise. But we climbed the pyramids down
there, and without any trouble. I think probably
within a couple or three weeks a person could get
acclimated.
Conditioning for Crew
Arlett: This leads me into something else I wanted to ask
you about. And that is, having been watching Marty
Arlett: McNair and having watched Jim Lemmon before him, and
knowing that Jim learned it from you, and Marty
learned it from Jim, I am of the opinion, without
having been a close observer, that you must have
been a pretty insistent coach on conditioning,
whether they were going up to a high altitude or not.
Ebrlght: Well, that's part of the business, you know. And
although they now only row three mile races, in my
era, up to the very last part of it, we rowed four
mile races in the east, and the only way to get ready
for that is to do a lot of hard work.
Arlett: I'm trying to get you to tell me a little bit about
the different kinds of conditioning that crews under
go, because some people, all they think of is a man
sitting and pulling oars, and there are other parts
of the anatomy that have to be developed too. There
are different kinds of exercising and of conditioning
that you folks have learned through the years to
require.
Ebright: Of course, most of the propulsion is done by the legs,
through the sliding seats. And so anything that
develops the legs Is good exercise. I always felt
the best exercise for rowing was to row, you know.
And that's what we did, mile after mile, mile after mile.
35
Arlett: Now they send the boys down for awhile, to work out
with Coach Sam Bell, of the track squad. And
there's a lot of this back and forth nowadays, which
I don't recall there having been some years back.
Ebright: While I was coach we never did anything but the
actual rowing. When I was an undergraduate at
Washington, it was difficult to row all the time,
so Connie used to send all of us, Including the
coxswains — me — out to run, cross country, with the
cross country fellows, in the fall. And I think, as
far as conditioning is concerned, that's great. And
if you can't — like here, you've got to go nine, ten
miles away — it's a lot easier to Just go out and run
around the campus than to go way down there, you
know. And so that's advantageous. And in the east,
where it's all frozen up in the winter, they have
tanks, you know, that they row in. Well, fortunately,
we don't have that problem. But I've always thought
that the rowing, the actual rowing, was the best
exercise you could get.
36
California's Ark
Arlett: Getting back to this tremendous spirit, the alumni
crew men have now undertaken to set up an organiza
tion of their own, and I gather you've been at
least quietly active in helping to bring them
together.
Ebright: Sure. Well, I think they can do a lot to help,
their alumni rowing club, Ark, not Noah's,
California's Ark, and be beneficial. California's
never had an alumni advisory group, formally, for
the crew, and I think it would be a good thing. Like
what I was saying, about the Board of Stewards of
the University of Washington. They still have one
of those, by the way, up there.
Arlett i How many men do they have on theirs?
Ebright: I really don't know, but I had lunch with their
coach when I was up there a couple months ago, and
he was saying that they had just had a meeting. From
what he said, and he named them all, I'd imagine
there were eight or ten. Something like that.
Arlett: You still have pretty deep roots up there. I know
you go back up there a good deal of the time.
Ebright: Oh, yes. We spend half the time up there.
37
Arlett: The Northwest is one of your favorite places. So I
imagine you must have a lot of evenings of conversa
tion with some of those people sometimes.
Ebright: Well, we have many old friends, quite a few old
friends from the old days. After being down here
for thirty-five years, we don't have any new friends
much up there, but we still have the old ones. And
we live, when we're up there, at a country place about
twenty miles out of Seattle, on a little lake. It's
on property that my father bought from the Indians
in 1904.
The Launch . the "Miss It"
Arlett: There's a kind of a sidelight to this, the friends,
and the people you know, and remembering a few
kind of comical incidents, like the famous launch.
You might recount that.
Ebright: I forget what year it was, probably was in the
thirties. I know Wally Frederick was the publicity
man for Cal at that time. They always had to have
a launch for the reporters to follow the races in,
and it's difficult to get a launch that'll hold very
38
Ebright: many people, or it was In those days ... there are
more now... that will keep up with the crews. They
go a pretty good lick, you know.
Arlett: How fast do they go?
Ebright: Oh, about fifteen miles an hour. Which doesn't
seem fast, in this day of jet speed, you know, but
when you're doing it yourself it seems pretty fast.
And for larger boats to carry quite a few people,
it's difficult to find one. When the man is looking
for one, why, the fellow that's trying to rent the
boat says, "Oh, yeah, they'll keep up. Yeah, they
can keep up. No trouble about that."
So Wally, that year rented a boat called the
"Miss It". And they all climbed aboard, forty or
fifty of them, I guess, and started out. And the
crews started, the race started, but the crews went
away, but the poor old "Miss It" kept getting farther
and farther behind. Couldn't keep up. And so the
reporters had a lot of fun out of that. They missed
it. They missed the race, with the name "Miss It".
Arlett: Well, even your coach's launch would have trouble,
it would seem to me, if the race is not an even one.
For instance, like the '32 crew that beat Washington
by eighteen lengths, you can't get your coach's
39
Arlett: launches up ahead.
Ebright: No, you have to stay behind the last crew. It's
the same at Poughkeepsie. There's a wide gap back
there now that they have fifteen crews between the
leader and the last one. But the launches have to
stay behind the last one, of course.
Arlett : Seems like the best vantage point would be a
helicopter or a blimp. We had the blimp.
fibrlght: They've used the blimp — at the 1932 Olympics.
Crew, the Purely Amateur Sport
Arlett: Something I'd like to get your thoughts on is your
general philosophy about athletics and the part that
crew has played in the lives of the men who participated
in it. Different coaches have different outlooks on
things. Sometimes they're close together, sometimes
they're widely divergent. I'm sure you must feel that
crew has done a great deal for a great many. It's
done a great deal for you, I'm sure, too, but I'd
like to get your slant on where it figures in the life
of the University.
Ebright: Well, I think it's a fine sport. I think it's the
Ebright: best sport, especially for college men. I'm never
one to talk adversely about any other sport, because
they all have their place, but the one thing that's
advantageous, I think, for the crew, is that there's
no money involved in any way. It's all done for the
love of the game, as they say. There's nothing in
it except Just the actual participation. And there's
no chance of getting a Job, or almost none, maybe a
few will be coaches. None at all to be employed as
a competitor. And so there's Just no monetary reward
of any kind.
Arlett: No pro contracts.
Ebright: No, not at all. Of course, as I say, for us older
people, there used to be more of a difference, a
cleavage between the idea of pro sports and amateur
sports. And you kind of keep the same ideas that
you always had, all your life. And so I kind of go
along with Avery Brundage's point of view, although
modern people say he's crazy. That's one thing
about the crew. It's purely amateur, and there's
something about it that brings out, I think, the best
in the fellows.
Coordinating the Men in a Crew
Arlett: Even though eight men rowing may look all right to
someone on the shore, watching the shell go by,
there's quite a difference. I wonder if you'd
touch on that for us.
Ebright: Well, everyone rows differently. Every single one
rows differently, some much differently from others,
some just a little bit differently, but it's always
different. And one reason for that is that every
body, really, is built a little bit differently.
Oh, they're longer in the waist or longer in the
thighs, or shorter, or their back is straight, or
their back is curved, or the hinge in their hips
works freely, or less free, and anyway, in going
about this process of rowing everyone does it Just
a little bit differently. And the trick is to
coordinate them so that they all do it as near alike
as possible. But to the casual observer it just
looks like a group doing exactly the same thing all
the time.
Then, of course, not only physically, but every
fellow is a little bit different in the head, you
know, and you've got to handle them a little bit
Ebright: differently. Different ideas appeal to different
ones of them, and you must stress this with one and
something else with the other in order to get the
most production out.
Arlett: I'm thinking now more of the physical differences
than the mental ones, or emotional — does this also,
then, have a bearing on adjacent men in the boat?
That is to say, does one man row better before or
behind another man?
Ebright: Yes, yes, I think that's true, but of course there
are certain limitations. First you try to get a
fellow that's a good stroke. He is generally not
too tall, not too short, not necessarily the strongest,
not necessarily the least strong, but he just has a
certain something that feeds this rhythm to the
fellows behind him and that makes the crew go. Well,
then you establish him as the stroke. Then, in the
other end of the crew, up in the bow, generally are
smaller fellows. And, in the middle, are the big
ones. And then you kind of try to fit them together,
and some reach farther or not as far. Some by
nature lay back farther than others. Some have a
hard time reaching forward, they Just don't swing
so easily. And you've Just got to try to put them
EbrightJ together, all of them in such a way that they fit
as well as possible,
Arlett: How do you determine who's going to row an oar on
which side of that boat, whether the left or right,
or port or starboard, or whatever you want to call
it?
Ebrightt Well, you've Just got to have half on one side and
half on the other, obviously. The man manipulates
the oar with his hand that's closest to the blade,
bevels and feathers it, and so if you have any left-
handed people you put them on the starboard side.
There 're not many left-handed ones, so then part of
the right hand fellows have to be on the starboard
also.
And then, there are other things. Maybe if the
next year all of your starboard fellows come back,
and none of the port fellows do, why then you've got
to change them around. And it's a little bit
different, learning to manipulate the oar with the
other hand. But principally, you Just got to have
the same number on each side.
Arlett: This is something I've never even thought about
before, but you Just made me think of it. Is there
some particular reason why the stroke's oar is always
Arlett: on one particular side of the boat?
Ebright: No. The modern American college way is to have the
stroke on the port side. But oftentimes they have
them on the starboard.
Arlett: They do?
Ebright: Yes. In foreign countries. It doesn't make a. bit
of difference, you know. There 're just four on one
side and four on the other. Then always, in my era,
up until not too long ago, all the port oars were,
well, eight, six, four and two. Seven, five, three,
and bow were starboard. But now they have
arrangements changing that, so that the eight
man and the five man are on the port side, and the
seven and six are on the starboard. Some think
there are some advantages. I really can't see quite
why there would be, but it's something to do that's
different, that's one thing. That's one of the
problems with rowing. You know, with most of the
other sports, there's all kinds of latitude for doing
something different. Like with the football, you
can pass or you can run or you can deploy your
fellows this way or that way. You can do a million
different things. But with a crew, they've Just got
to sit there all the time. And to relieve the
Ebright* monotony of It, If you can think of something to
change, you know, a wide blade, a narrow blade, a
change like I'm talking about, or other things;
anything to relieve the monotony of it I think is
advantageous .
Size of the Oarsmen, Size of the Shell
Arlett J Now, quite apart from Just relieving the monotony,
that brings up another facet of this whole sport,
and that is the development of the design of shells
and particularly the design of the oars, the blades.
I imagine there *ve been a great many changes in the
oars, haven't there, over these years?
Ebright: Oh, yes. But the curious part of it is that, if you
look at the history of rowing, which goes back a 125
years — well, forever, really — that most of these
things have been thought of a long, long time ago,
tried and changed, and they go back. Of course,
with the shells, the limitation of the water and the
dynamics of the thing, they make it so that there
isn't too much possibility of changing.
Arlett: Does the nature of the sport and the size of the
Arlett: shell, then, put sort of a maximum, sort of a
ceiling on the size of the man, too, that could
participate? I mean, would a man who is too tall
or, say, too wide in the beam be handicapped?
Ebright: The oarsmen now are much bigger than they were,
say, in my day, as an undergraduate. And so they
build the shells a little bit bigger, and they could
keep on building them "bigger yet. Of course when
there are tall fellows, seven feet tall, why, they've
got to have a little bit nore leg room too. The shell
would have to be specially built. And we can change
our shells so that they fit in pretty well, but the
way it has worked out, the fellows that are the best
have generally been between six feet two and six feet
five inches tall, and from 165 to about 200 pounds
weight.
Arlett: Is there some latitude in the length or the weight
or whatever you want to call it of the shells? I
mean, can one person's shell perhaps be a little
longer or a little shorter than someone else's?
Ebright: Oh, yes, there's no limitation.
Arlett: As long as you can get eight men in there.
Best and Best in Shells
Ebright: What they used to call in the old professional
rowing days, "best and best." You can get the best
boat you can, and !_ get the best I, can. There are
no qualifications or limitations, except, as I say,
the dynamics of the thing have indicated that a
certain design is Just about the best.
Arletti Well, what is about the right length average?
Ebright: Well, the length of the shell that they use now,
and have used in my career, is about 62 feet long,
and they're about 2k inches wide. They use oars that
are about 12 feet long. With an oar that's 12 feet
long and a shell that's two feet wide you've got to
put the oarlock, not in the gunwale, like it is in
a rowboat, you've got to extend it out there a ways,
that is, on an outrigger. They go out there about
18 inches. And all those things are fairly standard.
Although if men keep on getting bigger, why, I. can
see how the shells will have to accommodate for it.
They'll have to get bigger too. You know, there are
no rules about the length or anything about shells,
but they generally start a race with the rudders
even, hold on to the rudders, and then the finish
Ebright: line is when the bow crosses the finish. But in
Olympics, where there's a big variation in the
length of the shells, where there might be several
feet difference, why, they have to adjust so that
the bows are even at the start so that when they
go—
Arlett: I see. So they go the same distance! (Laughter)
Ebright: There could be five or six feet, and sometimes that
could make a difference in who wins.
Arlett: I can well imagine.
Ebright: You know, the Vesper Boat Club of Philadelphia won
the Olympics in Japan, in '64, isn't this something
new, people ask me. I say, well, yes, this is the
first time a club has won, but if you think back to,
say, the Olympic Trials in 1932 at Lake Quinsigamond
in Worcester, Massachusetts, when we won from the
Penn Athletic Club of Philadelphia, in the finals,
by two feet, if they had been three feet faster or
we had been three feet slower the Vesper Club wouldn't
have been the first ones. They were right on our
tail, and it wasn't as if this is a huge difference.
Arlett: Thirty-five years. (Laughter) Well, I Imagine
that, as you say, they're going to probably adapt
some of the equipment to the men, but it doesn't
Arlett: seem that they change the men. I mean, they continue
to turn out these tremendous people. They've cer
tainly been wonderful at the University of California,
Mementos
Ebright: The race does get bigger, however, you know. Like
old alumni that rowed in the teens or before, in the
1890's, even, they're almost universally smaller
than the ones now. And if you look back through the
old IRA programs I think you'll find that — I have
them for 35 or 40 years — the average size of the
oarsman now is much bigger than it was 35 years ago.
Arlett: Speaking of these things that you have, these IRA
programs, you must have a pretty wonderful collection
of trophies. Sitting here, I can see a number of
photographs. Do you have a whole separate room set
aside for these? You must have a great collection
of mementos.
Ebright: Well, that bookcase over there is full of a lot of
the stuff. All of the Olympic books there and quite
a battery of rowing books, which perhaps some day
will go to the University of California rowing
50
Ebright: library. They have a rowing library down there.
Arlett: Well, not only a rowing library. Maybe you didn't
know about this, but we are working on trying to
create our own University of California exhibit
place, where we're collecting what we can from
various sports. So that one of these days, if you
find items that you think you would be willing to
part with, that we would like to add them to the
collection there.
Ebright: I've often given things to the Archives Department
of UC Library. There's a fellow named Kantor, who
was, by the way, a coxswain at Cornell, who is now
in the Archives Department, and he's very interested
in making a collection.
Arlett: He's the new Archivist of the University.
fibright: Yes. Miss Dornin, I used to give things to her.
. Now this young fellow's there.
Arlett: I know that you would have many things that would
be of interest * even if you Just loaned them for a
little while. By the way, there's a display that
you probably have seen. There's a crew display
right now in the library.
Ebright: Yes. Kathryn and I went down and looked at it, and
we went in to call on Mr. Kantor at the same time,
but he was on vacation.
51
Boat Travel to the Olympic Games
Ebright: You know, now, in this Olympics, the teams all go
by airplane, but in my era, in 1928, we went by
boat, and also 19^8, by boat. I think they lose a
lot now, in the planes, for instance, in 1928 from
New York to Amsterdam, it was a nine-day crossing
on the steamship Roosevelt. Here were all these
athletes of all the various sports, *K)0 of them,
and all of them keeping in shape, working out on
the boat there, all of them with this nine days to
get acquainted with one another. It was a wonderful
experience for all of those boys, for everybody.
And, getting to Amsterdam, hotel accommodations
were pretty tight, as they always are at Olympic
time, and so we lived aboard, the steamship Roosevelt,
The first part of the time, it was anchored out in
the stream. There was no dockage facility, so we
had to go back and forth by water taxi to the boat,
and lived aboard there. And General MacArthur,
Douglas, was the head man of the party. Of course,
there are many things you'd think of that could be
talked about.
52
Stowaways
Ebright: One of them is that we had two stowaways — went with
us all the way to Amsterdam. In that day, it was
quite a thing for kids to stow away on the trips,
you know. One time, when we were going to Seattle,
we took our shells and our launch and everything in
a baggage car and there were eleven kids in there.
This time, in 1928, there was one boy named Dick
Van Lieu, who was manager, who had stowed away and
gotten to Poughkeepsie, and then he and a guy named
Phil Condit, number six on the freshmen crew, who's
a doctor around this area someplace now, stowed
away aboard the Roosevelt with us, and they went all
the way to Amsterdam. It became quite a thing.
They were trying to catch them, the management,
General MaoArthur and his aide, Major Rose, now
General Rose, and they were after me, trying to get
me to turn them in, which, of course, I wouldn't do.
One of them was sleeping on the floor in my state
room. And they couldn't catch them. It was kind of
a little bit of an annoyance.
Coming home, as the boat pulled out from
Amsterdam, neither of them were there. I thought,
53
Ebright: well, we don't have that problem. But, after you
go away from Amsterdam a day or so, you go through
a canal that cuts across maybe part of Denmark.
Anyway, we were going through this canal, in the
lock, and it took quite a while for the water to
come up or down. Here were Van Lieu and Gondit
again, climbing aboard for the trip on to New York.
(Laughter) They finally caught them, about two
days out of New York. But they only put them to
chipping rust, and it didn't hurt them much.
Arlett: Well, Condit was pretty good sized to be stowing
away.
Ebright: He sure was.
Arlett: I went to high school with him, and he played end
on the football team.
Ebright: He rowed six on the freshman crew that year.
And the time I'm telling you about, when the
eleven were in the baggage car, there was one kid,
I forgot his name, who was not a bona fide member
of the crew squad. But I let him go, and I learned
my lesson then. They were going through Oregon — the
baggage car was not on our train, it was on another
train — this guy pulled that bell cord. Well, the
train came to a grinding halt, and then the train
Ebright: people knew Just where it had come from, by some
way, so they all stormed in there. But these kids
were so well secreted that, of the eleven, they
only caught five of them. They only got five, and
they rousted them out. It was somewhere south of
Portland. And the ingenuity of these guys. These
kids, they kicked them off the train, but they got
on a bus, and went up to Portland, and then they
went around to the railroad yards, and found the
baggage car, and knocked on the door, so the six
kids who were in there let them in, and they went
the rest of the way, back in the baggage car, up to
Seattle. (Laughter)
Arlett: Well, that's something, but that business of going
all the way to Amsterdam* And back.
Ebright: That was a real feat, all right. As we were saying,
about the trip on the boat, very few know it, but
this very coaching launch that Marty McNair uses
now went to Amsterdam in 1928 aboard the steamship
Roosevelt, and we used it as a coaching launch on
the Sloten Canal, coaching the crew.
Arlett: That's a fantastic thing. I had no idea of that.
Ebright: There was a kid named Clarence Mitchell who had been
the senior manager a couple of years before, who
55
Ebright: drove the launch for us, and on the way over on the
boat he painted it red, white, and blue.
Well, in 19^8 we went on the steamship America,
and there it was again. Of course, the crossing
was only about four and a half or five days for
that. But it's a wonderful experience to get
acquainted with all those other people, something
that they don't have now.
Arlett: The '48 Olympics were in — ?
Ebright: In London. We landed at Southampton, and took the
shells by motor lorry, as they call it, up to Henley
on the Thames.
Weather for the Olympic Eaces
Arlett i I'm curious about what kind of weather conditions
you encountered in these different Olympic races
that you have been in. Were you lucky in all of
them, or did you hit bad weather?
EbriRht: Well, in Amsterdam it was poor, quite poor weather,
but on the Sloten Canal, where the rowing was in
1928, it's only 100 feet wide, so the water couldn't
rough up very much. I remember it rained quite a
56
Ebright: bit, but the weather didn't bother us there. Then,
of course, in Los Angeles, the prevailing wind
comes off the ocean, which was kind of annoying,
but the weather was good there. It was quite bad
weather in London, at Henley, and there, you know,
there were three crews on the course, and there they
race against the current. And when the weather was
bad, a lot of rain, it made the current pretty
strong. In every one of our heats, every one of
the three, we had the center lane, which, of course,
is where the water flows the strongest. But we were
so much stronger than any of the rest of them that
it was no problem.
The Margin of Victory
As a matter of fact, you know, they bet on
everything over there, and they made book on the
Olympic rowing, and California — I've got some
records to show them, printed material from a
bookie— that California was a hundred to one to win.
In other words, you would have had to put up $100
to win one, risk losing $100 to win one dollar on
57
Ebright: California.
Arlett: I imagine it would be pretty hard to put odds like
that on a crew race nowadays.
Ebright: And then the margin there was quite considerable.
You see, we won by two and a half lengths, which
is wide for 2000 meters. Six minutes of rowing.
In Amsterdam, the margin was about two-thirds of a
length, with Peter Donlon the stroke, and at Long
Beach, the Los Angeles Olympics, it was something
like twelve feet, a short deck length.
Arlett: H'mmm. The deck being the distance from the what —
from the bow man to the prow?
Ebright: To the tip, yes. It's about fifteen feet from the
bow man to the tip. I'll show you a picture of it
here in a minute.
Arlett: Okay.
Ebright: I've got most of these things around here someplace,
Arlett: I suppose many of the men you coached have become
prominent in later life?
Ebright: Oh, yes, a great many, too many to mention here.
But two do instantly come to mind. Bob McNamara,
Secretary of Defense, stroked the freshman crew in
1936. He wasn't very big so decided to go out for
manager in the following year. He was a sophomore
58
Ebright: manager in 1937 and a Junior manager in 1938. But
he didn't get the senior manager appointment,
Leland Stanford Scott, Jr. beat him out. Oh well.
Then a fellow named Eldred Peck stroked the
Junior Varsity in 1937* We know him as Gregory Peck
of the movies now. Of course there have been many,
many prominent attorneys, doctors, teachers,
financiers, and most any other field that could be
mentioned, who did a stint as members of the
University of California crew squad over the years.
Well, I'm afraid I've forgotten a lot of
things. Of course, in these times, you know, brother,
it's a strain, and you've got all you can handle just
to stay alive. (Laughter) You can't remember, either,
everything.
Arlett: Well, you've been remembering well, and we're very
grateful.
Ebright: That's enough for today, I guess.
Arlett: And thanks ever so much, Ky.
Ebright: Well, I'm glad to have cooperated.
59
INDEX
Beck, Brous, 11, 12, 14
Bell, Sam, 35
Brinck, Jack, 1?, 18
Brundage, Avery, *K>
Callow, Rusty, 10
Campbell, William Wallace, 16
Condi t, Phil, 52, 53
Connibear, Hiram, 10, 24, 35
Daedal ians, Order of, 6
DeVarona, Dave, 26, 2?
Donlon, Pete, 18, 30, 57
Dornin, May, 50
Doty, Walter, 3
Dunlap, Dave, 30
Ebright, Kathyrn, 3, 50
•
Prederi ck , Fran , 18
Frederick, Wally, 37
Grant, Don, 29
Kantor, J.R.K., 50
King, Clyde (Admiral), 20
Kumm, Ward, 11, 12, 1*4-
Leader, Ed, 10, 19, 20
Lemmon, Jim, 3^
Lieu, Van, 52, 53
Love, Harvey, 29
MacArthur, Douglas, 51 > 52
McMillan, Dan, 26
McNair, Marty, 32, 3^, 5^
McNamara, Robert, 57
Mitchell, Clarence, 5^
Nagler, Russ, 28
Nichols, Luther (Lute), 12
60
Peck, Eldred (Gregory), 58
Pocook, George, 23, 24
Scott, Leland Stanford, Jr., 58
Smith, Andy, 26
Spook, Benjamin, 20
Sproul, Robert Gordon, 16
Thompson, Bill, 1?, 18
61
CALIFORNIA'S THREE OLYMPIC EIGHT-OARED CHAMPIONS
1928 at AMSTERDAM
8 Pete Donlon
7 Hub Caldwell
6 Jim Workman
5 BiU Dally
U Bill Thompson
3 "Fsrad Irfederick
2 Jack Brinck
Bow Marvin Stalder
Cox Don Blessing
1932 at LOS ANGELES
8 Ed Salisbury
7 James Blair
6 Duncan Gregg
5 Dave Dunlap
4 Burt Jastram
3 Charlie Chandler
2 Harold Tower
Bow Winslow Hall
Cox Norrie Graham
at LONDON
8 Ian Turner
7 David Turner
6 Jim Hardy
5 George Ahlgren
U Lloyd Butler
3 Dave Brown
2 Justus Smith
Bow Jack Stack
Cox Ralph Purchase
IRA CHAMPIONS (Varsity): 128 (same boating as above); 1932 (same as above)
1939
8
7
6
I
3
2
Bow
Cox
Kirk Smith
Chet Gibson
Stan Freebom
Emil Burgh
Linton Emerson
Dave deVarona
Stan Backlund
Benson Roe
Jim Dieter ich
19Jt2
8
7
6
3
2
Bow
Cox
Ian Turner
Dave Draves
Bob Livermore
Dick Careen
Lloyd Butler
George Bauman
Justus Smith
Bob Sprenger
Ralph Purchase
I960
8
7
6
k
3
2
Bow
Cow
Don Martin
Elmore Chilton
Chris Barnes
Jack Matkin
Marty McNair
Bob Berry
Bruce Hans en
Gary Yancey
Arlen Lackey
8
7
6
k
3
2
Bow
Cox
Marty McNair
Kent Fleming
Chris Barnes
Steve Brandt
Rich Costello
Bob Berry
Tim Lyman
Jack Mat kin
Chuck Ortman
1964
8
7
6
3
2
Bow
Cox
Steve Johnson
Gus Schilling
Scott Gregg
Malcolm Thornley
Mike Page
John Sellers
Alan Mooeis
Ed Bradbury
Jim Liebien
IRA CHAMPIONS (Junior Varsity): 19Ul, 19U7, 1951, 1959
IRA CHAMPIONS (Freshman): 1938
OTHER KEY DATES IN CALIFORNIA CREW:
1870 — Rowing Club formed at Cal
l893--lst coach, E. M. Garnett
1899- -1st crew championship won, by
four with cox, Portland, Oregon
1902--W. B. Goodwin coach, 1st inter
collegiate race, win over Stanford
1905 — Garnett returned as coach,
undefeated season
1907 — 1st 8-oaied race, Richardson's Bay,
Stanford beat the Bears.
1909 — Dean Witter became coach
1916 — Ben Wallis new Bear coach
1921~lst of great Bear boats,
2nd to Navy in 1st Eastern
race
192^--Ky Ebright named coach
1959-~Ebright retired and Jim Lemmon
took over
1966 — Lemmon became Dean of Men and
Marty McNair became the new
Bear coach.
Rowing News May 1968
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS
KY EBRIGHT AND HIS "GOLDEN BEARS"
In this Olympic year it is appropriate to look back and
note the Olympic laurels of Carroll M. "Ky" Ebright, the
only man to produce three Olympic 8-oared championship
crews, all from the University of California. Navy and
Yale can boast two Olympic Eight winners and only
Vesper Boat Club can match California's 3 gold medals
in this event. But these were all gained under different
coaches. (It should be noted that the U.S.A. has won
every Olympic 8-oared contest except England's victories
by Leander B.C. in 1908 and 1912, when the U.S. did not
compete and 1960, when the U.S. entry, Navy, ran 5th
behind Germany.)
The record of Ky Ebright
and his "Golden Bears" is
unique and without equal.
Three times his tough, rangy
crews earned the honor of
representing the U.S.A. and
three times in 1928, 1932 and
again in 1948, they returned
victorious.
The first of these illustri
ous aggregations, the 1928
crew, gained new honors Just
last year, when they were
elected to the Helms Founda
tion Hall of Fame, only the
6th 8-oared crew to be so
honored. The Helms induc
tions are held annually at the
Steward's Dinner just prior to the I.R.A. Championships
at Syracuse. All seven surviving members of the '28 Olym
pic winners held a happy reunion at Syracuse last June
with their illustrious coach. They are still an active, vig
orous group, belying their plus-60 years. They were a
"picture" crew almost perfectly uniform in size during
their racing days.
Today their stroke Pete Donlon (stroke for 3 years and
winner of the outstanding oarsman award at Cal in '29) is
a retired contractor in Oakland, Calif. Hubert Caldwell
is an executive with U.S. Steel in the same city. Jim
Workman is a retired executive. William Dally is an agri
culturalist at Elmira, Calif. Frank Frederick is a mining
engineer at Berkeley. Colonel Marvin Stalder is U.S.A.F.
retired. Coxie Don Blessing, a San Francisco stock broker
was previously elected to the Helms Hall on an individual
basis. Two members of the crew, Bill Thompson and Jack
Brinck, are deceased.
They won their gold medals in a sizzling 5:46 on the
Sloten at Amsterdam, after first upsetting favored Yale
in the U.S. Trials.
Ky's 1932 Olympic gang also held a reunion a year ago,
at Seattle on the occasion of the annual Cal- Washington
duel. Inappropriately, they did not witness a "Golden
Bear" victory, much less anything like their own 18
length triumph over the Huskies in 1932, a feat still un
matched in this ancient rivalry. Their rallying cry was
"California's crew for the California Olympics." They won
one of the greatest 8-oared battles in Olympic history in a
hairline heartstopper over Italy in the then new Marine
Stadium at Long Beach, Calif., which will be the site of
the Olympic try-outs later this year.
They were boated as stroke Ed Salisbury, now a Cali
fornia fruit packing executive; Jim Blair, in the same
business with another west coast firm; Duncan Gregg,
executive with Kaiser Aluminum; Dave Dunlop, San Fran
cisco attorney; Burt Jastram, architect for Standard Oil;
Charles Chandler, executive of a business forms concern;
Winslow Hall, executive of food processing company and
coxie Norris Graham, owner of a welding equipment com
pany at Long Beach.
(Continued on page 22)
The hair may be a bit thinner and the waists a trifle wider,
but 36 years ago they were the World's best. The 1932
Olympic Champions. Sir. Ed Salisbury, Jim Blair, Dun
can Cregg, Dave Dunlap, Burt Jastram, Charles Chand
ler, Harold Tower, Bow Winslow Hall, Mgr. Dave White,
Coach Ky Ebright. (Kneeling) Cox Norrie Graham, shown
here in a 1967 reunion gathering at Seattle.
1948 California Varsity — Olympic Champions aboard the
S.S. America. (Standing I. to r.) Str. Ian Turner, Dave
Turner, Jim Hardy, George Ahlgren, Lloyd Butler, Dave
Brown, Justus Smith, Bow — Jack Stack. (Kneeling) Al
ternate Hans Jensen, Mgr. Jim Yost, Cox Ralph Purchase,
Coach Ky Ebright, Alternate Walt Deets.
The 1928 California Champions at their induction into the
Helms Hall of Fame at Syracuse in 1967. (Standing) Hu
bert Caldwell, Jim Wortman, Bill Daily, Fran Frederick,
Marv Staider. (Seated) Stroke Pete Donlon, Coach Ky
Ebright, Cox Don Blessing.
63
California Olympic champs at Philadelphia in 1928.
KY EBRIGHT (continued)
The last California Olympians won their gold medals
at the first post-war Olympiad, at Henley in 1948. They
lost their duel meet with Washington and fell again to
their arch rivals at Poughkeepsie in the I.R.A., but finally
in the semi-finals at the Trials at Princeton, they squeezed
past the Huskies by a hair-breadth 1/10 second and then
went on to nip Harvard by a narrow deck length in the
finals.
At Henley these low stroking Yanks romped through
2 easy heats, winning by 5 and 4 lengths. Then in the
finals against England and Norway, they trailed the
British by a half length at 1000 m. but they came on to
win going away by 3 lengths in 5:56, a fantastic time
against a very swift current.
Their stroke, Ian Turner, still regarded as one of the
all-time great collegiate strokes is now a planning execu
tive at the University of California. Lieut Commander
David Turner is a Navy flyer. Jim Hardy is a traffic
engineer in Los Angeles; Lloyd Butler, a petroleum ex
ecutive in L.A.; Dr. David Brown, medical research; Jus
tus Smith, city planning engineer in Denver; Jack Stack,
x-ray electrical engineering and Ralph Purchase is a
paper company sales executive in Sacramento.
The future will very probably produce even faster crews
than these — and hopefully there will be many more new
American Olympic 8-oared champions. But an Olympic
championship is something special, unique and ever time
less. Their feats will never really dim, nor is the future
ever likely to match the three Olympic 8-oared titles won
by Ky Ebright.
More Than a Century of Coaching
Art Arlett
Accomplishments of coaches (above,
from left to right) Nibs Price, Ky Ebright,
Clint Evans, and Brutus Hamilton have
earned great respect and deep affection.
| Longevity is not in itself a mark of distinction so
much as of durability. But at a time when the Univer
sity of California is being honored on the occasion of
its 100th anniversary, many of its alumni and friends
are paying simultaneous tribute to four remarkable
men whose combined careers as coaches of Golden
Bear teams have covered the even longer span of 1 25
years.
The four men, whose names and accomplishments
have been woven into the very texture of the Univer
sity's illustrious history, are Carroll "Ky" Ebright,
Clinton "Clint" Evans, Brutus Hamilton, and Clarence
"Nibs" Price.
Neither the conveniently rounded figure of 125
years or the prudently alphabetized listing of their
names does them justice. From a standpoint of sheer
arithmetic, the figure falls short of the truth, because
it covers only the periods when they wer^ head
coaches, and overlooks still other years of service as
assistants and counselors. It is a figure, however,
which helped dramatize an impressive gathering of
several hundred former Bear athletes who joined early
in May of this year to express their respect and deep
affection for the four retired and revered coaches.
Ky, Clint, Brutus, and Nibs had transcended, long
ago, the gap between paid coaches and personal
friends. They had taught, and taught well, the mastery
of athletic skills, but more than that, they had left
their lasting imprint in two other ways. They had
drilled and disciplined their teams to meet the physical
demand of sports, but also they had taught by word
and their own example the more exacting creed of
sportsmanship.
• Who is there, for example, in the world of crew
who can forget Ky, "The Little Admiral," barking
through his megaphone from the coach's weather-
beaten launch and guiding his 1928, 1932, and 1948
oarsmen to Olympic championships? Well remem
bered, too, are the facts that seven of his crews won
52 / CALIFORNIA MONTHI v / DF.CF.MBP.R 1967
65
IRA varsity titles, and that his 36 years in command
of the Blue and Gold armada still stands as the longest
period of service of any California head coach in
any sport.
It would take a distortion of history and a grievous
lapse of memory to erase the pioneering performance
of Clint Evans' 1947 baseball team in winning the
first national collegiate tournament. It is also a matter
of record, although not so widely realized, that in his
25 years as boss man on the Berkeley diamond, there
was only one season in which his teams did not win
more games than they lost. That was in 1944, when
World War II was nearing its end but still had
thousands of college-age men in uniform.
The whole world was the stage in 1952 when Brutus
Hamilton stepped into the spotlight as head coach of
the United States team which won the Olympic Games
track and field championship. But while this may have
been the most memorable year in his long and dis
tinguished career, it reflected only one of his coaching
accomplishments. For 33 years, until he retired in
1965, the backdrop for his many other claims to fame
was the University of California. During that time,
as the record books again testify, the Bears who ran
and jumped and threw under his tutelage held 12
world records, won four Olympic gold medals and
took first place in 15 NCAA championship events.
Dwarfed in stature by most of the basketball and
football players whom he coached, Nibs Price stands
tall in their estimation and in California's athletic
annals. Looking back on his 31 years as head basket
ball coach, he can point to six conference champion
ships, eight southern division titles and a total of 464
victories against 299 losses. For five of those years
he was also head football coach, and in two of the
five his California teams were conference champions,
one of them going to the Rose Bowl for the historic
game in which the Bears were edged by Georgia
Tech, 8-7.
| No man is a robot, certainly no man who has
helped to shape the destinies of hundreds of other
men, of generation after generation of young college
athletes. In their 125 years as head coaches at Cali
fornia, Ky, Clint, Brutus, and Nibs have left their
mark upon the University and its people in many,
many ways, and it was not done merely with won-and-
lost records or rows of medals and trophies.
DECEMBER 1967 / CALIFORNIA MONTHLY / 53
66
Ky Ebriglit's arrival on the Berkeley campus was
almost accidental. Brutus Hamilton's was deliberate.
Clint Evans' and Nibs Price's were inevitable.
With these divergent origins and motives, it would
seem impossible for such a foursome to reach a mutual
pinnacle of agreement and acclaim. It happened, how
ever, and the reasons are well worth exploring.
The rivalry in crew between California and Wash
ington had been spirited from its beginning, but in the
early 1920s there was a period of time when the Hus
kies' superiority became overwhelming and the Bears'
interest in rowing sagged so low that it appeared the
sport might be discontinued here. This was as much
a matter of concern in Seattle as it was in Berkeley,
perhaps more so. These were the only two schools on
the Pacific Coast with crews, an activity that is not
inexpensive to maintain but is well suited to the lake-
dotted northwestern area. If California abandoned the
sport, Washington's nearest opponent would be the
University of Wisconsin, more than half a continent
away, and there would have been problems not only
of distance and cost but of insufficient competition
beforehand. Suddenly, Ky Ebright became the "Man
of the Hour."
A young Washington alumnus and credited with
being a fine coxswain and knowledgeable crewman, Ky
had embarked on a business career with no thought
of going into coaching except as a volunteer assistant
at his .alma mater. This was not to be. Alumni from
the two universities converged on him and persuaded
the former tillerman to change his course and take on
the job of revitalizing crew at Cal.
How well he succeeded is now legend. Within four
years, he created the first of his three record-setting
Olympic championship boatloads of Bears.
0 Brutus Hamilton has been a track and field disciple,
in all the connotations of the sport's emphasis on im
peccable amateurism, for almost as long as he can
remember. Born in the Missouri community with the
unforgettable name of Peculiar, he went to that state's
university and ultimately reflected glory upon it by
winning a silver medal in the Olympic Games decath
lon. An avid and astute student of the techniques in
volved in all of this singularly individualized sport,
he went on to become coach at the University of Kan
sas, where he developed such outstanding competitors
as distance runner Glenn Cunningham.
When the time came for the beloved Walter Christie
to retire as California's first-and-only head track
coach, the University was determined to replace him
with the ablest man the nation had to offer. That man
turned out to be Brutus Hamilton.
What has not been said, however, is that Brutus
is a man of many facets. He is a scholar, a poet, a
former Air Force officer, a public speaker in wide
demand, and a raconteur with ready wit that belies
his sober mien and dignified manner. During his re
gime as coach, he was never known as a stern or over
ly demanding disciplinarian, preferring to let his ath
letes pace themselves to what they felt could be their
peak performances.
n It is not easy to separate Clint Evans and Nibs
Price in any description of California coaches who
are dedicated to the University from the soles of their
feet to the roots of their hair. Both of them are alumni.
Both competed here as undergraduates. Both went
into high school coaching, their teams often playing
each other. Both were instrumental in bringing to
Berkeley many of California's most celebrated ath
letes, including members of the famed Wonder Team.
Both, on their return to the campus, coached more
than one sport. And both have another interest in
common — grandchildren. Add a son of Clint to a
daughter of Nibs, and you have instant Californians.
Just color the picture Blue and Gold.
Nevertheless, for all of their similarities and long-
shared friendship and loyalties, they are not alike and
they do not evoke the same memories among Old
Blues. Clint, sitting in his chair beside the varsity
baseball dugout or pacing the field in front of his
freshman football bench, was always the shrilled-
voiced epitome of the title he plans someday to use
for his autobiography, "Be a good loser — but DON'T
LOSE!" He served as the Associated Students* grad
uate manager, predecessor title to the present director
of athletics but with non-sports responsibilities added
to the task. And when his baseball team won the
NCAA's initial championship, he was more than
normally pleased because, in taking his players to
Hawaii, Japan, and to many parts of the continental
United States, he had laid much of the groundwork
of goodwill that eventually brought about the national
tournament.
Nibs, softer spoken than Clint but just as jut-jawed
in protest against basketball referees' decisions as
Evans ever was against baseball umpires, is revered
by his players because of his close comradeship with
them. He is remembered as a basketball coach whose
team, beaten the first night in a two-game series,
would come up with the right answers and seldom
lose two in a row to the same opponent. His knowl
edge of football was equally respected, and for many
years after he relinquished the head coach's position,
he was called upon to scout for his successors and to
officiate at important games throughout the West.
A coxswain from Washington, a decathlon man
from Missouri, and a pair of deep-rooted Califor
nians have given the University 1 25 years of dedicated
coaching that merits honoring .in these days of Cen
tennial celebration.
54 / CALIFORNIA MONTHLY / DF.CF.MBP.R 1967
Arthur K. Arlett
Born in Berkeley; both parents born in Oakland.
Attended Claremont and Piedmont Avenue grammar schools and
University High School, all in Oakland.
B. A, in political science, University of California, 1931.
Editor", Daily Calif ornian, Fall, 1930.
Member: Golden Bear, Winged Helmet, Sigma Delta Chi,
Pi Delta Epsilon, English Club, Phi Phi.
Newspaper reporter (San Francisco Call-Bulletin) and
teaching assistant in journalism (U. C.) 1931-2.
In advertising and public relations work in San Francisco
and Los Angeles, 193U-1965.
Past president, San Francisco Advertising Club.
Past director, Advertising Club of Los Angeles.
At Golden Gate College, in San Francisco:
Instructor in advertising, 19£6-6lu
Associate Dean School of Business, 1961-65.
Sports interests and activities:
Began watching California games in early 1920 »s.»
"worked in press box at Berkeley, 1929-35.
Started announcing on radio in 1935.
Public address announcer for California football,
basketball, baseball, track and crew, 1936-1953.
Producer, sports radio broadcasts, Los Angeles, 1953-55.
Resumed public address duties for football and basketball
only, Berkeley, 1956 to present.
Public address announcer for four Rose Bowl games,
eight East-West Shrine Games.
Honorary member and former director, Alumni Big C Society.
Coordinator for Alumni and Public Relations, Department
of Intercollegiate Athletics, UCB, 1965 to present.
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