Rowers are renowned for their tenacity and grit, just as they are for their unity and commitment. Channeling the energy usually concentrated within a team itself, Nobles Crew recently joined the global community of oarspeople to answer an urgent call.
As war has rocked Ukraine’s rowing community, Girls Varsity Crew Coach Blair Crawford P’16 ’20 and Boys Varsity Crew Coach Adam Balogh chose to share Nobles’ resources with young rowers across the world. Nobles donated a total of seven boats: five four-person boats and two eight-person boats, which are expected to be delivered to Ukrainian rowing clubs in spring 2026.
Crawford explains the war’s impact on the country’s major rowing cities, Mariupol and Odessa. While adult national teams can relocate across borders for training, youth clubs were left without resources or options. “Ukraine rowing got decimated by the war. All the boat houses and boats got destroyed; there was nothing, literally. So in 2023 and 2024, momentum rose in the international rowing community, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’ A number of benefactors said, ‘Okay, if institutions and clubs can donate surplus equipment, we will coordinate the drop-off points, provide the transportation containers, and get this all to Europe. We’ll provide the trailer, the lorries, and the trucks to do it. And we’ll make it happen. In the U.S., that guy was Seán Colgan.”
Colgan, a rowing legend, has served on 10 national teams, including the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. The equipment drive he organized included donations of used equipment from schools in the Northeast Interscholastic Rowing Association (NEIRA). Crawford says, “We’ve been the grateful beneficiaries of some incredible donations from parents and alumni. That means we have an incredible fleet right now and a surplus to our requirements, which is so fortunate. We put together a gift-in-kind, a series of boats, many of which have quite storied histories in the Nobles program, and we put them on a trailer. Interestingly, a small point of connection to the school: The boats are being stored with Pete Evans, who owns his own machine shop in Rhode Island—he happens to be the father of Kelly Evans ’06 [Nobles and Harvard rower, Radcliffe rowing recruiter and assistant coach, and former Nobles faculty].”
Crawford’s experience over the past several years leading the Head of the Charles Regatta, the world’s largest multi-day rowing event, made the connection to Ukraine even more meaningful. In 2023, while hosting the Ukrainian national team, he says one of their prominent rowers, Olena Buyrak, “really impressed on me this point of the devastation back home, so I was personally pulled into the story with that interaction.”
Crawford and Balogh are setting an example for the culture of crew and Nobles itself, compassion in action when others are experiencing crises, no matter how distant. “We operate in such a privileged bubble here; the quality of the equipment is unbelievable. With that, obviously, comes some obligation.” In addition to the seven boats, he adds, “We gave about 40 oars. That’s quite a cool thing—to know that next we’ll see Nobles’ blade color splashing down different Ukrainian rivers.”
