Washington men’s rowing coach Michael Callahan always roots for the senior class during the annual Class Day Regatta.
UW women’s coach Yaz Farooq said she roots for all of the classes equally, and she said that wouldn’t even change if her husband rowed on one of the boats.
What the two coaches agree on is that Class Day is a big event, and the 122nd edition of it will be held Saturday morning on the Montlake Cut.
The men’s eight race is at 10:30. The women race at 10:45.
“There are some people on the team who have said that this race is more important than any race except for the NCAA (championships),” Farooq said. “There is definitely a lot of class pride and I would say hands down, it is the most epic Class Day race in America.”
Said Callahan: “You’re recruited as a class and we want you to be strong in the class you’ve come in with. We don’t want you just to be an individual. We’re trying to form the idea of team, the idea of selflessness. It’s brotherhood and sisterhood, and team before self, so class becomes really important.”
The winners of the Class Day Regatta get a little pin with a gold oar and a white blade on it. It was a pin that Callahan coveted while rowing at Washington, but never got.
Those who do earn them display them proudly, and for long after they leave the program.
“I still see guys from the 1950s or ’60s and they’ll come to (an event) and they’ll be wearing the little pin,” Callahan said.
Callahan said the daughter of legendary UW rower Joe Rantz, a member of the “Boys in The Boat” who won an Olympic gold medal in Berlin in 1936, wears her father’s Class Day pin to events.
Farooq said she didn’t comprehend the importance of Class Day when she left Stanford to coach at Washington. But she quickly learned when coaching her first one in 2017.
“The joke was on us as coaches because with the exception of Colin Sykes — who’d been around — we’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, Class Day, that will be fun,’ ” Farooq said. “Then all of the rowers were like, ‘This is a huge deal.’ And my captain, who was Maggie Phillips, was like, ‘Yes, this is really, really important.’ “
The juniors won both the men’s and women’s races last year, although both boats were boosted by having “super seniors” who were using an extra year of eligibility.
Now as seniors, they would seem to have the upper hand, but both coaches also said the freshmen classes are strong.
“I think that whichever class comes in there with the mindset and the decision that they’re going to execute it, that’s who should win,” Farooq said.
Notes
The first men’s UW Class Day race was in 1901 and the first one for the women was in 1907, although there was a long gap without the women’s competition before resuming in 1976.
- The women’s junior boat will have some fifth-year seniors it.
- The men’s freshman/varsity race will take place at 10 a.m., and the women’s freshman/varsity race will be held at 10:15.