50 Years Of Rowing At Trinity College

The oarsmen that could - fifty years after they started a tradition. Photo: Nick Lacy. Courtesy of Trinity College.

Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, is a small liberal arts school like many other educational institutions in the USA. Although there were some activities on the water in the early days, between 1856 and 1873, with some boys messing about in boats, ‘Doctor Rowing’ - Andy Anderson - writes in an article in the current Rowing News (December 2011, Vol. 18, issue 10), the sport of rowing vanished after one of the rowers drowned in an accident. In 1961, Baird Morgan and his friends at Trinity borrowed a shell to race against other schools, and so began a tradition. The boys kept the shell in an old Tobacco Barn.

Last month, the oarsmen, now maybe a little rounder and with some grey hair on their templates, reunited in the fairly new-built boat house by the Connecticut River to celebrate 50 years of oarsmanship at Trinity College. Rowing* has grown and is now one of the biggest sports at the college to the delight of both the old and younger rowers of today.

There is a nice piece on the Trinity College website about the rowing alums who visited the college for the October reunion, read the article here.

Below is a beautiful slideshow from the celebrations in October.



*Trinity College states on its athletic website that the school, both for women and men, has a rowing programme. (Not ‘crew’, we note.)