At last: Joe Burk, the Book

In his day, Joe Burk was the rock star of rowing. He was strong, muscular, built for grace and power. He was smart — a business major at Penn. And in the second half of the 1930s, he was the greatest single sculler in America, honored  in 1939 with a James E. Sullivan Award, the first rower to win the nation’s  most prestigious  award for an amateur athlete. Joe Burk should have gone to the 1936 “Hitler Olympics” but was in the University of Pennsylvania eight that lost out to the (Boys in the Boat) University of Washington crew.  He should have gone to the 1940 Olympics but they were cancelled because of World War II. Instead, he went to the Pacific where he won medals for heroism and then came back to become a much heralded crew coach at his alma mater. Now there’s finally a biography of Joe Burk, written by E.J Woodhouse, aptly called Joe Burk: An American Ideal.  (Be sure to click on the correct link on Amazon — not one of several purloined versions that fraudsters are trying to sell !!) Woodhouse uses the phrase  “American ideal” in his title because of Joe Burk’s ethic.  As a rower he trained hard, pushing his stroke rate to a regular — and punishing —  40 strokes per minute.  He sought advice –from the famed boat builder George Pocock. As a coach he wanted to be totally  fair in picking which of his athletes would compete in the most important races. So he used scientific techniques to try to take personal bias out of his decisions (such as mixing up the people in boats for practices and keeping track of which came in fastest.) He set by example. For instance, in winter when his undergraduate rowers complained it was too cold to row, he would jump into the water, taking a much colder plunge than just stepping into a boat. Among the many future coaches who learned from Burk was Harry Parker, who coached Harvard to victories, not to mention the famed  “Red Rose Crew,” which won silver in the first international women’s eight race. On top of everything, Joe Burk never lost his temper. I did a write up about the new book for Rowing News.  That article will be reprinted in the program book for this year’s Head of the Schuylkill Regatta, Oct. 25 and 26.  I’ll be at the regatta, too, selling my book, Boathouse Row, Waves of Change in the Birthplace of American Rowing. Drop by and say hi.