Stanford Crew

Stanford Crew

There has been a long and proud tradition of rowing at Stanford University.

April 1951 (click here to enlarge)

                                                            James Beggs, Duvall Hecht, James Fifer
                                                              (Stanford varsity eight in background)

                                                           James Fifer, Duvall Hecht, James Beggs
                                                              (Stanford varsity eight in foreground)

                                                      Bill Findlay, George Toepfer, Phil West, Jerry Thayer,
                                                      Ken Lewis, Ted Cannis, Morgan Sanborn, Stan Lewis
                                                                                    Peter Paup

Dave Herdman and Bill Findlay

Bill Allen - Syracuse, New York

Madison, Wisconsin

Seattle, Washington

(click here to enlarge)

In June 1954, I walked out of the Stanford University Crew boathouse at the Palo Alto Yacht Harbor for the last time.
I had spent four intensive years with members of the Stanford Crew here - hundreds of hours during my undergraduate
years as a coxswain and manager of the rowing teams and as secretary-treasurer (business manager) of the Stanford
Crew Association in support of the crew raising money, paying bills, writing letters, arranging out of town transportation,
buying and fixing equipment and doing public relations.

And even though I was at Stanford again from 1957-1959, I intentionally never went near the boathouse after 1954.
There is no other college sport that offers the same experiences, values and personal rewards that crew does, but in
June of 1954 I came to the realization that I had to move on and that I had devoted enough of my life and time to the
crew at Stanford - often at the expense of my studies.

50 years later, I returned to Stanford for my 50th class reunion and on the morning of October 23, 2004, crew
members of the Class of 1954 met at the new Stanford Rowing and Sailing Center at Redwood Shores.