Pull
Together
When individual rowers strive together in pursuit of a common goal, the team is greater than the sum of its parts — and it can achieve the extraordinary. Legendary shell builder and rowing sage George Pocock wrote, “To be of championship caliber, a crew must have total confidence in each other, able to drive with abandon, confident that no [person] will get the full weight of the pull.”
In 1936, a Depression-weary Seattle found hope in just such a crew: the University of Washington varsity, nine resilient young men from hardscrabble backgrounds. And when the team qualified for the Olympics, our community stepped up to help send them to Berlin — where the UW varsity crew won gold and carved out their place in history. They have since been immortalized as “The Boys in the Boat” in Daniel James Brown’s bestselling 2013 book and the film adaptation which was released in December 2023.
The values embodied in this story and the community that supported them are the same values that unite us today. Perseverance, determination and the belief that we can do amazing things when we pull together served as the foundation for the six-week Pull Together campaign. Focused on preserving our shared history, supporting athletic excellence and empowering tomorrow’s leaders, our community rose to the challenge and contributed over $2.8 million to support the ASUW Shell House restoration, UW Men’s and Women’s rowing and the Husky Promise Scholarship Fund.
The Pull Together campaign illustrated the extent to which we — Huskies, Washingtonians, Pacific Northwesterners — come together to pursue bold accomplishments and unlock boundless opportunity. Thank you for pulling together in support of the UW so we could, once again, cross the finish line for all of us.
Stay tuned for additional campaign results later this spring!
Follow in the footsteps of “The Boys in the Boat” on this interactive, digital walking tour experience.
“To see a winning crew in action is to witness a perfect harmony in which everything is right.”
The feature film
“The Boys in the Boat” is an epic sports and historical drama based on the #1 New York Times bestselling nonfiction book by Daniel James Brown. Directed by George Clooney, the film adaptation tells the true story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing team that competed for gold at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. This gripping inspirational tale follows a group of underdogs at the height of the Great Depression as they are thrust into the spotlight and take on elite rivals from around the world.
BoysintheBoatMovie
BoysintheBoatMovieHistorical photos: Team standing with oars — VCG Wilson/Bettmann Archive. ASUW Shell House — MOHAI, PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection, 1983.10.2608.1. Crew on Shell House dock — MOHAI, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, 1986.5.15874.1.