A Special to The Trojan Navy

The California Bears looked resplendent as they charged across the finish line on the way to yet another grand final appearance at the San Diego Crew Classic.

A full one minute and thirty-five seconds later, a wobbling last placed USC freshman crew limped across the line, its oars crashing across the water and boat flopping from port to starboard.



By that time, even the referees had long since passed the finish, leaving the Trojans bobbing in their wake. Yet on shore, a mother screamed at the top of her lungs, desperately urging her son’s crew on, as if some chance of victory remained.

Onlookers nearby may be forgiven for turning away smirking, for they could never have known that in those flailing strokes, rowing had just returned to Troy and one of the most powerful upward movements in the history of collegiate rowing had commenced.

The year was 2000 and USC had just rowed its first intercollegiate boat-race since being stripped of varsity status by Troy’s Athletic Department in 1994 because of reasons to do with Title IX.

The Crew was now reformed as a club sport and that beaming, boisterous mother was billionaire Mrs. Janet Burkle, owner of one of the country’s largest grocery store chains. Her son John Burkle, a film major at USC, was one of the first to sign up for the newly formed Trojan Navy and was now a starboard oarsman on the novice crew.

Local San Diego alumni were shocked to see a Trojan Crew back on the water in 2000. “That race was as painful to watch as any birth,” said Stu Neffeler ‘56. “But god bless those kids. They brought our Crew back to Troy.”

“It was deja-vu all over again for USC Crew,” says James Hoffman ‘52, who was a member of the first crew at Troy in the late 1940s. Half a century later, Men’s Crew was again starting out with borrowed beginnings.

Mrs. Burkle urged the alumni to form a Crew Board and Neffeler and Hoffman both felt that if the students were going to wear the Cardinal & Gold then they deserved every support possible. The new Crew Board was formed with Mrs. Burkle playing a leading role in financing the program and encouraging others to give.

And give they have.

The program has since produced a nationally ranked Crew, not to mention a string of 12 victories over cross-town rival UCLA. The Varsity Eight is undefeated this season against 26 other crews and won the National Collegiate Club Championships in the Fall.



It took a mother’s love to successfully bring Crew back to Troy. Unlike most spectators that day in 2000, Mrs. Burkle didn’t see a last place crew. She saw a group of young men and their female coxswain desperately chasing their Trojan dreams. In the face of certain defeat, these oarsmen continued to fight on.

Is that not truly what being a Trojan is all about?

For USC, it just may have been the Boat Race of the Century and a moment in this rowing program’s history that should be cherished by all members of the Trojan Family.

Amazingly, at that time only a mother could see it.