"MIND IN BOAT"-- the GENIUS COXSWAIN

The 1936 Olympics / Berlin

Cox Moch screaming his fellow crew first to the
finish with Hitler looking down from the stands.
Royal Brougham, the writer of this news clip,
did not brag, but he was also in the bleachers
catching the impressive story of 
Seattle on this Olympic course.
Click image to enlarge.
Gelatin-silver photograph from the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©

One year after the Olympic gold:

"Lucky Al Ulbrickson, the boys are saying. A world championship rowing crew right in his lap; all eight men back; nothing to do but sit in the coaching launch and watch them coast home with the gold-rimmed, diamond-studded crown.

Sure, all eight oarsmen are back at the sweeps but remember the little squirt who steered the boat to victory on Lake Washington, at Poughkeepsie, at Princeton, and at the little village of Grunau near Berlin? (That entire winning crew in the photograph above.)

Bob Moch--he'll be missing. 

The Huskies will miss the paperweight coxswain with the baritone voice like N.Y. Yanks would miss Lou Gehrig. Nobody knows the vital part that the quick-thinking Moch played in Washington's success.

Maybe the game Don Hume and his gallant fellows would have emerged victors in Berlin; maybe they would have won in the Olympic trials and on the Pacific Coast, but here's one observer who doubts very much if Ulbrickson's crew would have finished in front at Poughkeepsie but for the icy little man who rode the stern seat. As thrilling as their win in the Olympic Games finals, I maintain Washington's accomplishment on the Hudson was the finest bit of rowing of the year, and for that matter, of the decade.

Courtesy of The Seattle P-I newspaper

Everybody knows how Moch kept the slow-starting eight together despite the fact that the boat was three full-lengths behind, in fifth place, with a little more than a mile to go, the Husky adherents had given up the ship, and even Ulbrickson had resigned himself to bitter defeat. But Moch, shouting the Washington watchword, "M.I.B.--M.I.B.." maneuvered his crew to the most sensational triumph the historic old river has ever seen. The mysterious symbols reminded the boys to keep "Mind in Boat"--not once all year did a husky oarsman as much as steal a glance at the enemy. 

"Take ten more for Ulbrickson," he shouted as they went under the bridge.

"Now ten more for Pocock," he screamed.

"Here's California, boys--ten more big ones for mother and dad," he yelled, as astonished experts ashore thought the shell had been shot out of a gun, so rapidly did it eat up that last spread of water, to finish ahead by a length.

The picture of Bob Moch driving his Huskies to victory both at Poughkeepsie and at Berlin still thrills this hard-shelled scribe to the tips of his fingers.

All eight oarsmen back at Washington? Not a man missing from the championship shell? Maybe so, but the Little Napoleon of the tiller ropes won't be squatting in the stern, and the musclemen at the oars will have to prove to me that they can win without him."

Thank you to journalist Royal Brougham for these goosebumps written in 1937. 
Published by the Seattle P-I.  

Pocock, Moch, and the musclemen are gone but they left behind their George Pocock shell "Husky Clipper"-- archived at the University of Washington. A daughter of one of the crew tells more about the  Shellhouse here.