HAD TO BE one of the better road victories in University of Washington sports history.
Too bad the UW football team couldn't have been on hand to be inspired by it.
The night after quarterback Jake Locker ascended into Valhalla via Syracuse, N.Y., the Huskies men's crew figuratively set the Moscow River ablaze and, in the shadow of the Kremlin, was hailed by thousands of Russians as sporting conquerors.
Nobody argues which was more relevant. As long as big-time college athletics budgets are dictated by the fortunes of an option pitch on third-and-6, any football game is the biggest deal on campus.
That doesn't mean the rowing triumph was any less impressive than the footballers' 42-12 win over their garishly garbed hosts in the season opener. But the eight-oared gig was just a whole lot harder. And funnier.
"It was tough, but it was good," said UW director of rowing Bob Ernst, still chortling over a preposterous Labor Day weekend around the real Red Square. "No matter what happens here, these rowers will tell their grandkids that they were part of the ultimate dog-and-pony show."
Invited to row against a host crew from Moscow State University and two boats from English rowing citadels Oxford and Cambridge, the U.S. national champion Huskies won by about five lengths on a 3,200-meter river course awash in wakes, currents, traffic and history.
The outcome of the first-time event, held to help celebrate the 860th anniversary of the founding of the Russian capital, was secondary to the trip's oddities and absurdities.
"A jade base, and all kinds of diamonds, gold, silver, pearls, emeralds," Ernst said. "I'm trying to figure out what to do with it."
These are the kinds of moments that Ernst uses to counter the dreariness that accompanies the 6 a.m. starts to practice during a November squall on Lake Washington. Whether it was a trip to New Zealand two years ago, the tradition of the Henley regatta on London's Thames River, or the long-ago adventures to Egypt and South America under coaching legend Dick Erickson, Huskies crews tend to wind up on the edge.
"The bottom line is you can go to lots of universities to row," Ernst said, "but our guys get to do a lot of cool things."
No one was more appreciative than Michael Callahan, who this fall succeeds Ernst as men's coach, while Ernst returns to coach women's crew. A former UW captain and national-class rower, Callahan, who said the hosts treated the Seattle visitors superbly, was dazzled by his first international adventure as coach.
"The day before the race, Bob and I were in this launch on the river with a driver who didn't speak English," he said, "getting knocked around by the wash from these big tour boats, staring up at this enormous bronze statue of Peter the Great, with the Kremlin nearby.
"I looked at Bob and said, 'Can you believe we're here?' "
The meaning for Ernst was more than Callahan could comprehend. At Washington since 1974, Ernst was once the U.S. Olympic crew coach. But his appointment coincided with the boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow ordered by former President Carter.
Twenty-seven years later, his boys finally practiced on the rowing course built for the Games, now fallen into some decay. But rather than indulge in melancholy of opportunity lost, Ernst and Callahan reveled in the UW's first return to what some say was the greatest sports feat in UW history.
In July 1958, Washington's varsity eight became the first U.S. team in any sport allowed to compete behind the Iron Curtain. Avenging a loss 15 days earlier at Henley, the collegians beat the older, more experienced Leningrad Trud Rowing Club and three other Soviet boats in what is regarded as one of the great upsets in the sport's history. Seattle's KOMO radio dispatched a young reporter by the name of Keith Jackson to send the first sports broadcast back to the West from the Soviet Union.
Coincidentally, a Seattle film crew is creating a documentary on the race's 50th anniversary. When the Russian invite popped up after the varsity eight won the national title in June, the filmmakers received permission to accompany. They're still in Moscow, looking for 70-something rowers to tell the Russian side of the story.
The UW's unexpected foreign blitz -- they were gone just five days, only 2 1/2 on the ground (or water) -- and its delights capped a year that was one of the best in the rich tradition at Washington.
"I don't know if this year was a fairy tale, but everything worked our way," Callahan said. "The trip to Moscow was symbolically a nice end, and a nice beginning."
Rewarding as it was, it's worthy to note no purple priorities were misplaced. Callahan admitted to frantically text-messaging Seattle friends Friday night. Despite the 11-hour time difference and the large day at hand, he had to get game updates from Syracuse.