Harville rows her boat into retirement

Without fanfare but not without considerable thought, Jan Harville retired recently as the women's rowing coach at Washington.

She was not only the most successful coach at the university — her crews winning half of the six NCAA varsity eight championships contested — but she is only 51 years old.

"I saw Randy Hart (the long-time assistant football coach)," said Harville, "and he told me he'd only known two football coaches who retired. All the others had been fired or died."

What happened?

Last summer, after winning another NCAA title, Harville found herself trying to get excited about the upcoming season.

She sensed it might be her last.

"You don't do a job like this just to do it," she said. "What I've liked about myself is an ability to really work hard and not even think it was work."

But it was becoming work for Harville, in her 23rd season as a coach at Washington. For most of every year, she was up at 4:30 a.m., on the water at 6 for workouts, maybe home by 6 at night.

Weekends were races, summers were camps and international regattas, and there was always the pressure to succeed at a place like Washington, where expectations for rowing were almost unreasonable.

"You have stewardship of a wonderful thing, but the responsibility is tremendous," she said.

Harville told the athletic department of her decision to retire the day it became public that the football coach, Rick Neuheisel, had admitted to NCAA officials that he had participated in a gambling auction on college basketball tournaments.

She was subsequently lost in the commotion, but that is nothing new for a rowing coach.

And unlike football and basketball coaches, Harville is not so consumed by her job that she can't appreciate — and want — another life.

"I've got things I want to do," she said. "Dan (her husband) and I talk about when we're going to do this, and when we're going to do that. Well, maybe that time has come."

Perhaps it is that Harville doesn't have her identity all wrapped up in her profession because she wasn't a pampered high-school athlete and didn't get a scholarship to row in college.

"People ask me if I've got the job I dreamed of," she said, "and I ask, 'How could it be a dream when it wasn't even a possibility?' When I started rowing, there were no full-paid women's coaches or even funded women's teams.

"I think I just kind of tumbled into all of this. As I tell people, I've seen one end of the Title IX rainbow and the other."

She loved coaching the Huskies. In the days since she announced her retirement, she wonders what if she had gone to Stanford instead of Washington as she almost did. Or what if she hadn't seen the notice for a women's rowing team at Washington, or after graduation hadn't been approached by Olympian Carol Brown to row with her, a relationship that would see them make two Olympic teams.

Or in Germany, what if she had missed the notice Bob Ernst put up advertising for a woman to assist him with the women's team at Washington.

It was never easy. One of the reasons Harville rowed at Washington was because Dick Erickson, the men's coach, said the women could use the men's equipment if they'd sneak out on the water early enough.

And she did. She also graduated from Washington with a degree in medical technology and worked at Northwest Hospital for six years. She saw her salary cut in half when, in 1980, she decided to go into coaching.

She worked for Ernst, first as his assistant for the women's team, and then as women's coach when Ernst took over the men's program from Erickson.

"Bob is the best coach I know," said Harville. "I've learned so much from him."

Harville wants to pull weeds in her yard for a while. Her husband, a computer programmer at the university, is scheduled to retire in two years.

Then they'll travel.

"Our house is paid for; and we aren't extravagant people," she said. "I'll keep busy, but I'm not looking for a new career."

She said she would have continued as rowing coach if it had been a 40-hour-a-week job with weekends free.

"But it isn't that kind of profession," she said, "and I know that."

A national search has begun for a coach to succeed Harville. Her choice for the job is Eleanor McElvaine, who has been her assistant and chief recruiter since 1990. McElvaine rowed on three national-championship teams for the Huskies.

"I was a driven, competitive person who was fortunate to find an outlet for it," Harville said. "I'll miss my job. I love rowing, and the university, but the time had come."

Some never realize it. Harville did.

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com