Against the Odds

A celebration of the Monash University Rowing Club and of how the pursuit of rowing lends itself to success in other avenues of life.

Monash University was founded in 1958 and by 1962 students were enquiring about the purchase of a rowing boat from the Melbourne University Boat Club. Despite concerns about the possible distracting effect on study and Clayton being ‘well-removed from any suitable sheet of water’, the male-only Monash University Rowing Club (MURC) was formed the following year. Its swift achievements matched those of the growing university, seeing it soon acclaimed as Victoria’s premier rowing club, and joined by the Monash University Women’s Rowing Club in 1973. Today, all Monash oarspeople row together under the MURC banner.

William P. Gurry, who as a young law student was a member of the rowing club from 1967 to 1972, including four years as Captain of Boats, here tells the full history of MURC for the first time. He writes of the number of challenges faced by the club – and of its sustained success across the decades. He writes of the victories and losses, the obstacles encountered and what happened after, of the Olympians, the future captains of industry, and the many successful careers of the MURC men and women. Most of all, in this beautifully designed and illustrated volume, he writes about what it means to compete against the odds.