Paul Laskow’s 1970 Dad Vail Varsity Eight Heavyweight Championship was only the start for Paul, of making his mark on the rowing community! In keeping with the constitution of so many rowers, Paul was the personification of humility and like so many of his colleague rowers, he was relentless in working to give back to the sport to repay the value debt, a synonym for the values inculcated by Paul’s coaches, rowing mentors, and rowing club members. When Paul first took to the Schuylkill River at the tender age of thirteen because he was a bit too small to compete with older boys in other sports, little did he know he would spend the next six decades of his life on the river. He became a 1965 high school champion with the LaSalle College High School which led to a rowing scholarship at St. Joseph’s College, now Saint Joseph’s University, culminating in his 1970 Dad Vail Varsity Eight Heavyweight victory. Paul’s most recent notable “give back” service was in the capacity as the longtime chair of the Schuylkill Navy River Restoration Committee and his instrumental role in scheduling the dredging project after 23 years of silt accumulation which required building consensus on Boathouse Row to fundraise to underwrite the cost of dredging. Converting donors from disbelief to belief, to contribute towards a dredging project which in the past had been fully funded by federal tax dollars was a leviathan task but over a number of years, Paul’s patient and repeated explanations to Boathouse Row members, coaches, athletic directors, local colleges, regatta leaders, the rowing community at large and many Philadelphia citizens who enjoyed the Schuylkill River in beautiful Fairmount Park, Paul persuasive modus operandi raised the necessary seed money to start the process. An avid rower until his untimely passing in June 2022 Paul’s love for rowing and competition resulted in many medals awarded from age-categorized Masters events rowing out of University Barge Club, which Paul had joined in the 1970’s. Paul’s exemplary life as a rower and ever contributing member of the rowing community has been repeatedly memorialized during the year since he passed and will continue to be, in perpetuity, within the Dad Vail’s Annual Regatta program on the page entitled Final Toast. Paul Laskow: Dad Vail Champion and Giant of a Figure on Schuylkill River
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