29 May 2024
By John Wylder
Visiting the last PAC-12 Championships Regatta, John Wylder asks what will happen to the trophies?
My wife Carolyn “Lyn” Wylder and I went to the final PAC-12 Championships Regatta, which is her next to the last regatta as a rowing referee. Lyn was the recipient of the 2023 USRowing Jack Franklin Award, which recognizes an individual for a lifetime of contributions to the sport of rowing. The winner of the Award is selected by the USRowing Referee Committee. She was the fifth American woman to attain this achievement.
Lyn and I became referees in 1991 when we lived in Atlanta and the city was awarded the 1996 Olympic Games. Bob Peterson, who was the only USRowing licensed referee living in Atlanta at that time, put out a call for new refs. His sales pitch was that people who want to volunteer at the Olympics can get better jobs if they hold a referee license in any Olympic sport. He made sure we all knew we would not be an Olympic referee, but we might get a better position than just parking cars or selling T-shirts. It worked out well for Lyn and me and we were National Technical Officials at the rowing venue for the Games. It was a great experience.
Along the way we both got our FISA, now World Rowing, licenses and we worked at different events, including World Championships, and in Lyn’s case, the 2020 (2021) Paralympics in Tokyo.
I retired as a referee in 2016, and Lyn will retire this year, her last event will be the NCAA Women’s Rowing Championship.
We have both done the PAC-12 Rowing Championships in the past, and Lyn was invited to be part of the jury for the final regatta this year, which took place on May 19 at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center in Gold River, California. This was the last season as most of the schools will join a different conference next year.
While at the regatta, I stopped by the awards tent and looked at the trophies, and that was when it hit me – what will happen to the trophies? The two remaining schools, Oregon State and Washington State, have never won a PAC-12 Rowing Championship. None of the schools on the trophies will ever race for them again.
One of the trophies is named after Ky Ebright, former coach at University of Washington. Washington will still race through the cut, the historic boathouse will remain, but it will be new stories that will be written, and none will fully reflect the past.
What will happen next is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they will start over with new trophies, perhaps they will keep the old ones, though that, to me, makes no sense.
In all cases though, this is a historic moment and everything about rowing in the area will be changed forever.