Dick Erickson
Rowing Coach

Dick attended Arlington High where he lettered in football, basketball, track and tennis. He then attended the UW and graduated in 1958. There, he was an accomplished oarsman earning two varsity letters. He was on the 1958 UW crew that defeated the Leningrad Trud Rowing Club crew in Moscow after losing to the Soviets at the Henley Regatta in England.

After his undergraduate days, he went on to coach the Husky crew for 20 years and spent almost another 20 years as UW’s facilities manager for athletics until he died at age 65 in July, 2001. Some of his major accomplishments as the UW crew coach are:
• Won 15 Pacific Coast Rowing Championships and the 1984 national collegiate championship.
• Won the 1977 Henley Grand Challenge championship.
• Pac-10 Coach of the Year 3 times.
• Member of the U.S. Olympic Rowing Committee from 1972-75.
• Instrumental in creating the UW women’s varsity rowing team in 1975 and is credited for developing UW rowing as one program – the men’s and women’s crew together.
• Instrumental in making Seattle’s Opening Day regatta a nationally recognized event. It was Dick’s idea and it became one of the biggest and best regattas in the world.

Dick was is in Husky Hall of Fame both as a rower and coach, and he is one of four men honored with a bronze plaque in the Conibear Shellhouse.