Fred Spuhn

Harvard's Assistant Crew Coach 1924-1925

Pennsylvania's Crew Coach 1926-1927

Pennsylvania's Assistant Crew Coach 1927-1928

Yale's Freshman coach 1929-1937

Princeton's Crew Coach 1938-1942

Fred Spuhn graduated from the University of Washington in 1924 and was a member of the varsity crew 1922-1923.  The 1923 varsity crew won the varsity 8 race at Poughkeepsie, the first western crew to do so.

After graduation he was hired to coach the 150 lb crews at Harvard. In fall 1925, he was offered a 1 year contract as head coach at the University of Pennsylvania.  He took the job and recruited Max Luft, another Washington rower, to serve as freshman coach.  When Spuhn's contract expired, Pennsylvania chose instead to hire Russell "Rusty" Callow from the University of Washington to be head coach.  Callow asked Spuhn to be his assistant.  In 1929, Spuhn resigned and took the freshman coach position at Yale University.  He would coach several successful crews at Yale and this would lead to him being offered the position of head coach at Princeton University.

He took the job at Princeton and worked hard to improve the crews in the 4 years he was there.  In 1942, he and other Princeton coaches enlisted in the military.  Spuhn did not return to coaching.

He was inducted into the National Rowing Hall of Fame in 1956 and the Husky Hall of Fame in 1990.

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