Representing rowing in the Hall of Fame

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This article was published 22/07/2019 (2502 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame has found its first builder in the sport of rowing in River Heights’ Don Hornby.

Hornby, a dedicated rowing umpire and perennial board member who has served locally and nationally for the sport’s governing bodies, was announced as part of the 2019 induction class on July 7.

“I’m surprised and honoured, actually, because I’ve been working away at the sport that I love, and trying to give back to the sport that I love,” Hornby said. “I’d sort of grown up through the administrative ranks and the umpiring ranks, and took pride in helping give back to rowing.”

At 28 years old, Hornby got his start in the sport by way of good friend Ken Skinner, who suggested the pair go for a row on the Red River. While not necessarily providing the instant gratification of other sports, like golf or tennis, Hornby said the meditative and cerebral aspects of rowing caught his interest as an athlete coming late to the game.

Taking to the waterways of Winnipeg before the city had awakened, he said, and the stillness of the river provided an addictive escape.

“You get locked into a stroke and you get into maybe 10 strokes where it’s just nirvana, where the boat is running so cleanly, and the click of the oar locks all squaring up together, and the catch and then the release, when the oar comes out of the water. You get locked into yourself, and into your crew.

However, it’s not a fun sport, Hornby admits.

“It’s really a hard work sport, but it’s very rewarding in it builds character, and to me it’s the ultimate team sport because we’re all in the same boat — we really are.”

Hornby competed in two, four, and eight man teams at the Canada Summer Games, Royal Canadian Henley, the North Western International Rowing Association Championship, and world masters events. Now 75, he has spent the past 45 years building the governance capacity of local rowing associations and pursuing officiating at an international level.

In 1984, and while balancing his day job as a sports television producer, Hornby began officiating at the local and regional levels. After witnessing an official make a questionable call at a regatta in which his daughter was rowing, Hornby decided to “get inside the tent” and learn the sport from a different perspective.

“My interest was trying to get the rules of racing and rowing applied consistently across the country,” Hornby said. “That wasn’t always the case when I started.”

Hornby eventually served as chief umpire of the North Western International Rowing Association Championships in 1993, ’94, ’96, 2000, and 2003, and presided over events at the 1991 Western Canada Summer Games and 1997 Canada Summer Games as chief umpire, and in 1999 served as the regatta chairman for the Pan Am Games.

With a new notch on his oar every year, Hornby pursued his FISA (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron) official accreditation, became the first prairie umpire at the international level, and took to the water to serve as a member of the jury at the FISA World Cups in 2001 and 2003, learning from and working with the best.

“You’d be refereeing with somebody from Hungary, from India, from Germany and so on, so it’s a real representation of the people rowing on the water,” he said. “That’s been an interesting part, as a byproduct, meeting people who have the same interest from around the world.”

In addition to his work as an umpire, Hornby served on the board of the Winnipeg Rowing Club, the North Western International Rowing Association, and Rowing Canada Aviron, among other associations. Atop his list of priorities was increasing the number of local coaches, athletes, and umpires in the sport.

“I saw it as a way of growing the sport, growing the club, and becoming more organized and having meetings, committees at the boat house, and building a rowing community,” Hornby said. “I’d like to think that I had a positive influence on rowing at the administrative level, to become more business like, and certainly in terms of the umpiring. I hope my example of providing mentorship and recruiting and training others would continue.”