#real tbitb

“Moch trains seriously along with the rest of his crew. 'More or less voluntarily,' he says, 'for the principle of the thing.' He has a varsity letter in fencing, too. He never sang in the glee club, in spite of his fine bass; has an 'absolute monotone.’

14 July 1936 - Tacoma, Washington

Fred Hampson got into a talkfest with Gaston Moch, the influential Montesano jeweler and father of Washington's crew announcer, the other day and learned that young Bob probably inherited his coxswaining skill from his mother. Moch said he personally had been in a rowboat a couple of times but never saw a shell until Bob made the crew.

And here's how Bob Moch got his start.

"Bob said when he was 12 years old, some day he would be a coxswain of a Washington crew. I don't know much about rowing, but I know a coxswain, like a jockey, had to be small. So I told him he better eat lightly," Papa Moch chatted. "As a kid he read everything he could find about rowing and never missed a chance to buttonhole an oarsman and learn something more."

When Fred asked him if Bob is going to wait until the last 10 feet to put Washington ahead at Berlin, Moch replied, mopping his brow:

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York)

Syracuse University’s crew was a victim of an emergency measure by Washington in the 1936 regatta at Poughkeepsie, which might have brought about disqualification of the Huskies, as race winners, if Syracuse had pressed a claim of foul.

The New Yorker tells the story in a tribute to Robert G. "Bob" Moch, Washington coxswain.

…

"He told us the story of how Syracuse helped Washington win the Poughkeepsie race, thus putting Washington in fine fettle for the Olympic trials. Seems that in the No.7 lane at Poughkeepsie there is an eddy along about the three-mile mark, created by a projecting abutment of a bridge. Ulbrickson, the Washington coach, was horrified when his crew drew the seventh lane, and instructed Moch to steer over into the sixta lane, which was Syracuse's, and avold the eddy. Moch gradually began inching over, and before the bridge was reached was right in Syracuse's lage, the Syracuse oars almost ticking Washington's.”

"The Syracuse coxswain bawled at Moch to get over, and so did the referee, but Washington just kept on going, and finally pulled ahead of Syracuse. They went under the bridge in Syracuse's lane, and won the race by a length. 'If you get in that eddy you lose two or three lengths sure, Moch told us. That means we'd have lost the race.' The Syracuse coxswain was all for reporting these goings-on and claiming a foul, but the Syracuse stroke—‘a fine fellow,’ Moch says earnestly—good-naturedly persuaded him not to.”

In the collection is a photo titled "Group portraits on driveway during social gathering," estimated to have been taken sometime between 1985 and 1989 at one of the frequent social gatherings of the boys and their families.

On the back of this photograph, Bobby had written the following:

I did not pass out!!

I get that he would have been more than 71 years old at the time the picture was taken, but I just can't help but picture Bobby passing out regularly throughout his life and being totally chill about it.

Like I can totally see movie!Ulbrickson and Bolles both have a heart attack every time it happens. Still, Bobby finds the whole situation both annoying af because of the attention but also lowkey hilarious because of how frazzled the coaches get over him. The first time it happens in front of his boys which happens to not be at a practice? Literally absolute chaos because they take him to the university's medical ward, which freaks Bobby out when he comes to, and thus freaks the boys out.