This story originally aired on September 2, 2017.
For many in the Seattle area, Royal Brougham might be little more than a regal sounding street near Safeco Field. But Royal Brougham was actually one of the longest tenured reporters in U.S. newspaper history, working 68 years, primarily as a sports columnist and editor, for the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
He was also an advocate for the city of Seattle, looking for ways to put it on the map well before the likes of Amazon and Starbucks came along. And in the mid 1930s, he helped do just that, on the strength of the University of Washington crew team. Rowing was a really big deal in those days, with up to 90,000 people showing up to races in Seattle.
Daniel James Brown is the author of the bestseller Boys In The Boat. In the interview, Brown sat down with host Gabriel Spitzer to talk about that time, the role the UW crew team played in the 1936 Olympics in Germany, and Royal Brougham's unique role in that time and place.
Read Royal Brougham's memoir chapter about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
