Organized crew at Washington State University began as a men's club sport in the 1969-1970 school year; female Cougars began rowing in 1974. In 1990, women's rowing became an official university-funded sport; as of 2016 men's rowing still remains a club activity. The terms crew and rowing are effectively interchangeable.
The collection consists of papers dealing with men's and women's crew at Washington State University. They tend not to be official university papers, but rather documents collected by people affiliated with the programs, though some official budgets and other materials are included. The materials bulk from about 1985-2000, with the majority of the club materials dating from 1985-1989. Very little men's materials, other than the Pull Hard newsletters, are present from 1990 forward.
The first series deals with crew as a club sport, and deals primarily, but not exclusively, with men's rowing. It also includes one short subseries of materials from the Cougar Rowing Association / Cougar Rowing Foundation, which served as a fund-raising, organizational, and alumni group for the men's and women's clubs. The second series is women's rowing from 1990 (when it became an official university sport) forward. The bulk of that is a subseries consisting of clippings and small materials such as schedules, programs, and results. All the materials are organized alphabetically by subject save one subseries - the women's rowing clippings and other small materials are organized chronologically and placed at the end of the women's crew materials. There is some slight overlap between the series - for example, "Results: PAC-10 Championships and San Diego Crew Classic, 1997-2001" includes both women's athletics and men's club results.
The collection is broken into two primary series, men's and women's crew.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Some materials may be subject to copyright.
[Item Description]
Washington State University Crew (Rowing) Records, 1973-2011 (Archives 359)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The materials in this collection were transferred to MASC by Roger and Tammy Crawford on March 16, 2016, and retained as accession UA2016-03. Roger and Tammy both rowed for WSU in the 1980s; Tammy coached women's crew from 1990-2002. A folder of 1973 documentation from Phillip Irwin was added in summer of 2024, and a folder of mostly 1979 documentation from Doug Engle in November 2025.
This collection was processed in March of 2016 by University Archivist Mark O'English.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.