Charlie Butt - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

After graduating with a degree in aeronautical engineering from MIT in 1941 where it is believed he had been both a lightweight oarsman and coxswain. After graduation Charlie moved to Northern Virginia. In 1949, he approached the administration at Washington-Lee High School, offering to start a rowing team.

In their inaugural season the Varsity Crew won all but their first race and culminated the season with a sweep of the "Big Three:" NoVa's (Northern Virginia Championships), Stotesbury Cup and the National Schoolboy Championships held that year in Detroit, Michigan. Charlie once offered a personal note to their championship win, crediting it to his refusal to let the W-L oarsmen fraternise with the other crews who stayed up late the night before playing cards in the gymnasium that collectively housed the contestants.

"Charlie" as he was called, not sir or Mr. Butt, was head coach of Washington-Lee High School's Crew(W-L Crew ) program in Arlington, VA for 41 years. He is regarded as the Father of Washington, DC area Scholastic Rowing because he was instrumental in organising numerous rowing programs in the area, both scholastic and collegiate. Charlie coached while working full time for the Department of the army as an Aeronautical Engineer. Looking like a true engineer, often wearing a tan Haspel suit, white shirt, bow tie and spectacles, not to mention his Beaver class ring, Charlie defined what the term coach was all about. In 1979 and 1980, he was recognised as Washingtonian of the Year for his contribution to many in his successful rowing programs, which had touched so many people and area high schools. Perhaps Charlie's most notable accomplishment as a coach was having his W-L Varsity Eight be the first American team to win the Princess Elizabeth Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley-on-Thames, England in 1964, the second time he had taken the W-L crew to England. The W-L Crew's first trip to the Henley Royal Regatta was in 1962, when the crew made the semi-finals of the Thames Cup competition, a significant accomplishment since they were competing against an international field of college and club men's teams. At that time, the Stewards of the Regatta accepted only British entries to the schoolboy event, the Princess Elizabeth Cup), requiring Charlie's team to race against collegians. In 1964, the Stewards opened the Princess Elizabeth Cup competition to foreign crews, making Charlie's W-L Varsity eight the first American crew to win the cup. Charlie's third effort at the Henley in 1966 fell victim to a mid-race equipment failure that effectively prevented one man from rowing, but his crew returned in 1969 to win the Cup a second time. Since there was no other international schoolboy competition at the time, this was a de facto world championship for Charlie's crews. (More recently, there is organized international competition for both boys and girls under 18.) Since rowing was only a club sport at Washington-Lee, a public high school, most of the money was raised locally to take his crew, boat and oars to England where they stayed in the neighboring town of Nettlebed. Over the years, his crews also had 19 scholastic National titles and numerous Stotesbury Cup and Northern Virginia Championships. He has coached many Olympians including Tony Johnson, the current head rowing coach of Georgetown University who gives credit to Charlie for his love for the sport.

Being an instrumental person in the growth and development of youth rowing, Charlie also spent many summers, and falls coaching rowers at Potomac Boat Club (PBC). Between 1961 and 1980 Charlie hosted and coached boats comprising parts of the Junior Men's National Team, rowing out of PBC.