History

USC Men’s Crew was established, in partnership with and as a reaction to, UCLA Men’s Rowing. The 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles sparked the first interest in rowing in Southern California, and it was after these Olympics that UCLA established its Men’s Rowing team.

In the late 1930’s Bob Hillen, USC’s first coach-to-be, was a coxswain at UCLA. Upon graduating, he began his coaching career at high schools and junior colleges in Sacramento. In 1940, he became Assistant Coach at UCLA, and in 1946, Head Coach.

A young man named Julian Wolf rowed for Coach Hillen at UCLA as an undergraduate, and then came to USC to attend law school. Because there were so few rowing teams in Southern California at this time, Coach Hillen called Julian and asked him to organize a crew at USC so that UCLA would have a local collegiate crew to race against. Thus, USC Men’s Crew was born in 1947. Like Julian, most of the ’47 Crew were veterans returning to school after World War II. Coach Hillen and UCLA provided USC with boathouse accommodations and second-hand equipment. USC raced UCLA that first year, establishing a tradition that continues to this day. The Alumni Review of 1964 summed up USC’s auspicious ‘borrowed beginnings’ best: “If it is possible for a sport to be started on anything less than a shoe string, crew at the University of Southern California was. In 1948, when the first crew was put on the water, it was with a borrowed shell, borrowed oars, borrowed launching dock and a borrowed coach. Only the manpower belonged to USC.”

In 1948, after falling in love with USC’s heritage and spirit, Coach Hillen resigned his position at UCLA and began at USC as Men’s Crew Head Coach, a position he held for 43 years, until 1990. The same year, the crew acquired its first equipment: two eight oared shells, gifts from the University of California, Berkeley; some old oars, leftovers from the 1932 Olympic games; and a set of new oars, a gift from the mother of a student oarsmen. Despite such humble beginnings, the Trojan Navy became a powerhouse presence on the West Coast as the following decade unfolded. Upset victories brought national recognition to the Trojan Men’s rowing program.

In 1953, the Trojans won their first victories over major schools. There were two dual race wins over UCLA, starting a string of victories that went unbroken for 8 years, a dead heat rowed over Stanford, a highly ranked team at the time, among other celebrated victories.

Over the next half century, Hillen’s Varsity Crews enjoyed wins over every crew in the PAC-10 conference, except for the Washington Huskies. Easily the biggest victory came in 1956 when the Trojan Varsity defeated the 3-time Olympic Champion California Golden Bears. The most successful Trojan oarsman on the international level was 4-time Olympian, Conn Findlay. He was a Gold medalist in 1956 in Melbourne, Bronze medalist in 1960 in Rome and Gold medalist in 1964 in Tokyo all in the Men’s Pair. He also has the distinction of being one of the few people to medal in 2 very different sports earning a Bronze in sailing in 1976 in Montreal.

One of the highlights of Coach Hillen’s tenure at USC was the completion of a boathouse in the Port of Los Angeles in 1961. This boathouse was moved to the present location and is still used by USC Women’s Rowing.

In 1994, USC’s Athletic Department decided to no longer sponsor Men’s Crew as a varsity intercollegiate sport. This decision was based on the University’s responsibility to meet federal gender equity guidelines as a part of Title IX, as well as the relatively high cost of the sport. Because of this decision, USC Men’s Crew ended operations that year. The men’s boats were sold off with the proceeds going towards funding the women’s crew.

The program did not exist from 1996-2000. In 1999, when New Jersey business student Chris Wilkinson discovered there was no men’s rowing team, he decided to restart the team as a club sport. Wilkinson used his infectious energy to recruit a crew, a coach, and then alumni support, spearheaded by Jack Schumacher, for a new Trojan Navy. From 2001 until 2006, the Crew operated out of Loyola Marymount University’s boathouse in Marina Del Rey.

In 2006, USC Men’s Crew moved its fleet of shells and oars to the USC Women’s Rowing boathouse parking lot at Berth 94 in the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California (the boathouse that was formerly used by both men’s and women’s programs until the men’s program ended in 1994 with the advent of Title IX and a decline in alumni donations).

Today our program has a tent boathouse funded and constructed by alumni oarsman and board member Mike Gray (the “Mike Gray Boathouse”) built in the summer of 2013 to shelter our shells, oars, parts, and other equipment.

The team has worked to become a premier club rowing program on the West Coast and beyond. We earned 2nd place (2014) & 4th place (2015) finishes at ACRA. In the summer of 2015, Taylor Beach was selected to represent the US in the Men’s 2x at the Under 23 World Championships held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Most recently, there have been numerous coaching changes. The team is now on an upswing, making the Grand Finals at the San Diego Crew Classic and WIRA regattas, finishing 5th and 4th respectively in 2019, while building a strong team culture and chemistry. Also in 2019, Evan Falstrup participated in the World Rowing Indoor Championships finishing 4th in the World and 2nd amongst US entries. Our rowers come from all over the country and the world, majoring in everything from engineering to business, pre-med, theater, and everything in between!