Through four decades, Mike Hess has used those words to incite, teach, and commit Husky rowers to their goals, and it is likely that another four decades will hear the same from him with the same results. Unfailingly, his exhortation is received seriously by Husky athletes, with both admiration for the source and renewed determination to achieve new personal bests. In more than a century of excellence, few Husky rowers have earned such respect, or have remained as viable and involved in the program, as Mike.

This month Mike steps down from his second stint as chair of the Washington Rowing Stewards. Many of you understand the impact he has had on our program – both on the water and off – but for those of you who don’t, it is time for you knew more about this remarkable man.

Long considered one of Washington’s all-time finest oarsmen, he was also one of the world’s great oarsmen during his peak years in the seventies. He remains so today. Last fall at the age of fifty, in a boat representing the Pocock Rowing Center and filled with a number of his Husky friends, he and his Masters teammates outraced arch rival Pennsylvania Athletic Club to win gold at the Head of the Charles. Consider this: he pulled the seven oar in a starboard rigged shell that featured, at stroke, 2004 Olympic gold medalist Bryan Volpenhein who is a full twenty years younger than he.

Mike spent his early years in the Midwest but moved with his parents and brothers to Vancouver Island where he attended high school at Shawnigan Lake School, home of a highly regarded prep rowing program. At the University of Washington, he was a member of the great class of 1977 that will be honored on their thirtieth reunion at the VBC Banquet later this month.

During his years as an undergraduate, he was more than a fixture in the program. With his teammates, he won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1977, was team Captain in 1977 and 1978, and won the team’s inspirational award in those same years. He was in the U.S. gold medal boat at the Pan American Games in 1975, stroked the U.S. Olympic eight at Montreal in 1976, returned to the national team in 1977 and 1978, and won gold once again as stroke of the U.S. eight in the 1979 Pan American Games. With the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and growing doubts about U.S. participation in the 1980 Olympic Games, he left elite level rowing to pursue a career.

Mike married U.W. track athlete, Andy, and their daughter, Joanna, was born in 1984. All three row. Jo, a recent Yale graduate, was cause for Mike and Andy to make nearly a dozen cross-county trips last spring for the eastern college racing season.

Mike is a board member of the National Rowing Foundation and a friend to rowers and coaches throughout the world. Most important for us, he has remained intimately involved in the Husky rowing program, contributing endless time, spirit, energy, intelligence, leadership and money.

If there is a lasting legacy to his service as an alumnus, however, it must be the new Conibear Shellhouse. Few know of the endless hours he spent with Bob Ernst, the Athletic Department, and the architects and contractor to ensure that the rebuilt boat house retained its central purpose as the home of Husky Crew. With Bob, he committed early that the space for the men’s and women’s programs would not become a basement afterthought but, instead, one of the fine rowing facilities in the world. It wasn’t an easy battle and it wasn’t easily won, but his persistence, influence and persuasive skills are reflected today in the building’s theme, and in many design and construction details. The long training room, for example, has cutout hillsides at the north and south ends that allow for large windows and a room filled with daylight. That single, hard-won concession changed the character of the entire ground floor. But that was only the most obvious contribution. The list goes on and on, and generations of Husky athletes will have the Ernst-Hess pair to thank for the final results.

After a number of years at the helm of the Washington Rowing Stewards, Mike is turning over the chair in order to relieve himself of some of the detail and demands on his time. That doesn’t mean he’s going anywhere. Yes, he will have a bit more time for Andy and Jo, and a bit more time to get to their cabin on Hood Canal, but Mike has too much energy and too much devotion to Husky Crew to step away from it. He will remain on the Washington Rowing Stewards’ new Executive Committee, and he will continue to be heavily involved in the Stewards’ affairs. He will be around the shellhouse, as always, watching the crews develop, providing inspiration to the athletes, displaying excellence and commitment through personal example, helping lead the Stewards, and quietly underwriting necessities through an endless stream of gifts of money and spirit. He and his buddies might even pull off another victory this fall on the Charles River. And, as always, he will display his commitment through personal example, living the “be humble, be hungry, be fast” creed himself, every day.

Leadership begins with Courtney Plitt, the VBC Commodore, who matches a commanding enthusiasm to her fun, approachable personality. She is assisted by Andrea Smith, VBC Skipper, who coordinates team activities, Andrea Sooter, Purser, who manages the team’s finances and the quarterly gear orders, and Liz Simenstad, Logger, who records race results, team events, and other components of the team’s character for future use.

All four are competing for spots in the top boats with the other four seniors, Asiha Grigsby, Cara Troelstra, Victoria Gibson, and Corianne Bowman. Asiha came to the UW initially to join the track team but was soon recruited into rowing, and she has been a lively presence around the boathouse ever since. Cara is one of several Canadian-born rowers in our program, and her skill in the boat and off the water is indisputable. Vicki hails from Boston (she is one of the few East Coasters in Washington rowing), and has always been one of the hardest-working rowers in the program. Corianne, who comes from Cowiche, Washington, spent two years rowing at North Park University near Chicago but decided it wasn’t competitive enough and came west again. Our team could not have been luckier.

There are also some juniors and rookies who are getting ready to take the future of Washington crew into their own hands. Three top ones are Kim Armstrong, Taryn Langlois, and Jamie Unwin. In high school, Kim rowed for Everett Rowing Association, an outstanding rowing program north of Seattle. Taryn leads by example and never complains. Jamie came to the University from British Columbia. All three bring power, determination, and an incredible work ethic to practice.

This year we have two juniors and two rookies doing a fine job of steering and motivating the boats, but one coxswain that stands out is Alysha Koorji. Alysha coxed the freshman eight in the spring of 2005 through a competitive season which ended in victory at Pac-10s, a triumph which the rowers, coaches, and parents remember fondly.

We have been at this at Washington for 104 years and counting, and I am humbled to have been asked to lead the Rowing Stewards into its next phase. Taking over from Mike Hess is particularly daunting because he set (and will continue to set) the standard for long-term investment of time, effort, financial support, and results.

Unlike Mike, I was a casual fan of rowing for most of my adult life. Like most of you, I wrote occasional checks, came down for a launch ride every few years, and read race results in the local Sunday papers – when I happened to notice them. I also wondered what the Rowing Stewards did, what they accomplished, and how one got tapped as a member.

But also, like most of you, I kept in touch with my classmates and friends from my days on the water. Our shared experience and the stories we tell about it (getting better and funnier each year) make them among the closest friends I have. I’ve even made friends with a Cal Bear or two since graduation, which says something about the mystique, camaraderie and selectivity of our sport.

Three or four years ago an unusual set of circumstances reconnected me to the program and not long after I resolved to give back, finally, to one of the true passions of my life. Every moment of it has been rewarding. As I think about the future of rowing at Washington, I hope that my experience in returning can be an example for those of you who have thought of making your own contributions. Reconnection, a word we have used frequently in these pages the last two years, will be the theme of my tenure. We launched the online newsletter two years ago and month by month it pulls alumni back, increases numbers at our events, and boosts fundraising results. But we have a long way to go. By some estimates, we are in regular contact with no more than ten to fifteen percent our alumni base.

Recognizing the need to find and engage our alumni and friends, Matt Andersen recently designed and wrote a software package that will provide us with far better alumni tracking. Along with Andrew Dempsey, his partner in the effort, Matt gifted the package to the Stewards. Over the next year, we will use it to find, record and communicate with our community, and to engage in a more useful discourse with it. If you are looking for a way to give back to the program, we are looking for Class and Era Captains. Contact our alumni coordinator, Gints Salaks, at gints@u.washington.edu and he will tell you what’s involved.