Harrison King, right, helping to carry an 8-shell to Dexter Lake for Covered Bridge Regatta
By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
Oddly enough, the first question asked of Harrison King was not as unusual as it was thought to be. Turns out plenty of people over the years have asked the Bainbridge High School senior if he was named after famed actor Harrison Ford.
“I get that a lot from people I meet,” says King, adding he was not named after Ford. “They (parents Robert Christopher and Robin King) just liked the name.”
Bainbridge Island Rowing likes the name a lot, too. King was an important crewmember on the heavyweight fours that recently raced in US Rowing Association’s Northwest Regional finals on Vancouver Lake. The team placed fifth out of six boats and did not quality for the Junior Nationals this weekend in Oak Ridge, Tenn, although three other BIR boats did. However, only the varsity girl’s eights and the boy’s lightweight fours will race in Tennessee.
King started rowing in the 8th grade and performed so well for the heavyweight fours that he will now move on and try to walk-on at the University of Washington to row for a Husky program that is currently the best in the nation.
“He is a super solid kid,” says Bruce Beall, coach of the BIR boy’s who knows what he talks about as a former USA Olympian rower who resides in the Washington Husky Hall of Fame for his oarsman skills. “He is one of our best technically correct rowers. He just rows incredibly well.”
When Beall uses solid in the same breath as King it’s with more good reason than just rowing. King carries a 3.95 grade-point average and though his church – Rolling Bay Presbyterian – has gone on summer mission trips to South Dakota, Colorado, Mexico and Arizona and this summer will head out to another one, this to West Virginia.
And he doesn’t stop there. King plays electric guitar and sometimes drums, when the regular drummer doesn’t show, at Sunday church service.
“I have not had lessons on the drums,” says King. “My brother wanted a drum set a couple years ago, but didn’t play them The drums are nothing fancy, and I’m not nearly as good on them as I am on guitar.”
As he has with music, King has kind of found his own way in a boat. He played baseball and football and in the eighth grade his parents suggested he would be a good fit to be a rower.
“They thought I would have potential in the sport,” says King. “My dad told me I’m built to be a rower.”
Turns out they were right.
He tried it that year and really liked it. He rowed on the novice boat with older kids – freshman and sophomores at Bainbridge High School – and really fell in love with what was a good team dynamic.
“I remember being a little scared at first, but it was cool how they welcomed you in as part of a team,” says King. “It was a bit scary rowing with high-schoolers and them taking in an eighth-grader like me. That was cool.”
King continued to play baseball and football – he was a pitcher/first baseman/catcher and an offensive lineman – and rowed just that one year as an eighth-grader through his sophomore year at Bainbridge.
Then he decided to give up football. It was a tough decision because many of his friends were playing.
“They didn’t want me to stop playing football,” King says. “That summer, right before my junior year, I spend the whole time working out with the team to get ready for the season. I really thought about it and decided football wasn’t really for me. It wasn’t exactly the sport I enjoyed doing the most. I thought baseball was that for me.”
So he told his parents he would give rowing a second chance. So that fall and winter he was on the varsity crew, and discovered it was a lot of fun. Even though he didn’t have the experience others had, he made the varsity eight.
King’s inexperience didn’t show up on the erg test that rowing coaches use to make decisions on who earns a seat in a boat. He was good on the erg machine.
“The great thing about rowing is on rowing the erg (machine) you get that instant feedback,” King says. “The numbers are right in front of you. The only thing I was lacking was the experience and that began to show up in the winter.”
King wasn’t ready to quit baseball yet, so he played baseball in the spring of his junior. The spring is the main rowing season, and Beall wasn’t too happy.
“He did a good job in the fall (and winter) and then he went and played baseball,” says Beall. “I was quite disappointed.”
But the then six-foot-thee, 220-pound King came back out this past fall and again was rock solid as a rower, losing 30 pounds through the spring season.
“He rowed on our main boat on the starboard side,” says Beall, noting once again King was steady and consistent.
King’s efforts led Beall to believe he had NCAA D-1 potential.
“Rowing in college is a fantastic experience for kids, “says Beall, who rowed at Washington and was on the 1984 US Olympic Rowing Team. “I encourage many of my kids to continue on college rowing. (King) was wavering about trying it and I believed he really could be a good competitor there, and should try it.”
So Beall took him, as he has others, to a UW rowing practice. They rode in the launch and then King went to classes with one of the crew.
“We caught the 4:40 a.m. ferry boat, went to practice and he introduced me to the coach and the team,” said King, who had to pinch himself to prove this was all real.
Afterward, some of the seniors who were in the engineering program took time to talk to him and give him a tour of the campus. He wound up going to classes and came away believing he could do this – row for the Huskies.
“They have their own national championship and that was a little daunting for me,” King said. “But it really was a good experience, and that sealed the deal. Next year I will try and walk-on with them at the U-dub.
“I’m just so glad Bruce Beall saw the potential in me.”
