Rowing was big in 1936 Olympics

We all know what the great Jesse Owens did in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Were you aware of a great accomplishment on the water by the United States men’s rowing team in 1936? Did you know rowing was a big time spectator sport in the 1930s?

I wasn’t aware of the “Boys of ‘36,” and no I did not know how popular rowing events were in the 1930s. In a PBS American Experience episode this week called “The Boys of ‘36,” I learned about the remarkable University of Washington varsity crew team, which claimed the gold medal for the U.S. in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

PBS premiered “The Boys of ‘36” in conjunction with the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 80th anniversary of the miracle crew’s triumph against all odds in Nazi Germany. At each Olympics from 1920 to 1965, the United States was represented by crews from various colleges and won the men’s eight event.

My experience with rowing came in Kansas when two individual girls from Iola High School — neither had any rowing experience — went to Kansas State University and made the Wildcat women’s rowing team. I did several stories on the two as they worked their way up from the novice eights to the variety eights. One of the girls was a varsity rower and the other became a varsity coxswain — the lightweight person sitting in the front of the scull (boat) and calling directions to the rowers.

Newton High’s Kaelee Knoll signed this summer to row at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kan. So, rowing is hitting right here in Newton.

In 1936, there were no scholarships for rowing at the University of Washington, but the rowing team was good. It won the U.S. Olympic trials, beating more experienced U.S. university crews. The group of nine — eight rowers and a coxswain — working-class young men set sail with the U.S. Olympic team for Germany.

The story of these young men is told in the PBS program, which was inspired by a Daniel James Brown book on the 1936 Olympic gold medal rowing team. The story is of sons of loggers, shipyard workers and farmers and their trimuph against Adolf Hitler’s elite German rowers.

Find “The Boys of ‘36” on PBS and watch it.

The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio are underway with soccer starting on Wednesday. The U.S. women won their opener. Don’t look for a U.S. men’s soccer team — it didn’t qualify for the Olympics. The opening ceremony is Friday.

You’ll need to find a chart to find out which sports are on what television channel. I want to find sports other than the basketball games, so I’ll be hunting through channels.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at

jsheets@newtondailynews.com