One doesn’t normally regard marathon runners as a fertile field for recruiting potential crew members – let alone national title holders.
But 2001 BHS grad Evan Galloway – who ran the Christmas Marathon in Olympia as a junior, competed in the state cross country meet as a senior and logged personal bests of nine minutes, 55 seconds in the 3200 meters and 4:37 in the 1600 – rowed bow for the University of Washington fours-with-coxswain shell that won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association national championship on June 1.
For good measure, the boat – whose members rowed together for the first time ever in mid-May – demolished the previous record by 12 seconds, clocking 6:17.38 for the 2,000 meter course.
Prior to his fall matriculation at the UW, Galloway’s only previous rowing experience had been a spring class at Green Lake during the eighth grade.
“All I knew was that I wanted to continue with athletics, but I didn’t have any specific plans,” he said.
But he knew Jeff Bartunek and Rick Tarbill, previous BHS grads who had become involved with the Husky rowing program.
“So I had the idea that it was an option,” he said, even though he was aware that at five feet, eleven inches and 170 pounds he wasn’t exactly a prototypical oarsman.
“Most guys who row are well over six feet and pushing 200 pounds,” he noted.
Galloway began with about 70 other freshmen, a number that dwindled to fewer than 20 by the spring.
“You could tell that some things were set up to test how well people reacted to increased training loads and more difficult workouts,” he said. “There was definitely an element of constant testing.”
His most rigorous personal test came during the winter.
“It was really hard,” he conceded. “We’d already been training for four months and still hadn’t raced. It was dark and cold every day and the training volume was really high. Some days I just felt like nothing was going right. But I kept hammering.”
Slowly he nailed down a smoother form and became more efficient with his stroke. With Nationals drawing nearer, he was named as one of two alternates to the freshman “A” boat. Then the coaches decided that as long as the two freshman and two varsity alternates were going all the way across the country, they might as well race.
“We came together two weeks before the race, and the heats on Thursday were the first time that we had ever raced together,” Galloway explained. “But the two varsity guys (a senior and a junior) were very good rowers, efficient and methodical. It was very easy to follow them.
“But we had no idea how fast we were – or slow, for that matter – so it was nerve-wracking.”
Within 15 strokes into the opening heat, Galloway’s seat jumped off its slide and actually hit the coxswain, though she was uninjured. That resulted in a re-start, and the boat won by seven lengths.
“Then we had the idea that we might win the race,” he said. An open-water win in Friday’s semi did nothing to diminish that belief, and after taking the lead midway through the final on Saturday, Galloway’s boat romped to victory by four seconds.
“I’d much rather have been in the freshman eight, but it was a nice consolation to be in that four,” he said.
He gave much of the credit for his success to the strong aerobic base developed from running.
“Rowing is more of an endurance sport that I’d thought,” he said. “There’s a misconception that you just use upper body strength. But you have to generate power over a long period of time.
“As the training volume increased, the endurance from the past few years and the mental confidence I’d gained from progressing to a higher amount of work helped me adjust.
“And I had a really fantastic coach, Fred Honebein. He trained us to a T.”
He’s looking forward to helping out with the Bainbridge Island Rowing Club this summer.
And he’ll stay in shape by regular ergometer workouts and running.
But the one-time marathoner, who returned to his athletic roots about a week ago, noticed that “it felt a little strange at first.
“I had to get used to using my legs in an alternating fashion.”
