Except for Key West, Fla., a cross-country trip from Seattle to Cherry Hill, N.J., is about as far as a person can travel.

For former Oak Harbor resident David Worley, the early June jaunt to the East Coast involved more than just sight seeing in Bruce Springsteen’s home state. Much more.

Worley is a member of the University of Washington’s varsity eight rowing team and the Huskies entered the NCAA championship as the only unbeaten boat in the competition.

Pitted against Stanford and Harvard in Saturday’s 2,000-meter finals on the Cooper River, U Dub showed the nation that speed on the water is synonymous with the Pacific Northwest as the eight-man team rowed to the national championship in the weekend’s best time of 5:33.16.

Harvard had won three of the last four NCAA titles, but this weekend it was Washington’s turn to reclaim the title.

The last time the Huskies brought home the championship trophy was in 1997.

Worley, who has the size and strength to be a competitive rower, stands six-feet, six inches and weights 230 pounds. He rows in the number-four seat with the eight-man Washington crew.

Graduating from Oak Harbor High School in 2002 where he played high school tennis for one season, Worley had never sat in a racing shell until the fall of 2004.

“David has really done most of this by himself,” said his mother, Rita. “He has done a lot of hard work to get where he is.”

Worley became a member of this year’s championship crew in a round-about way.

In 2006 he graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in political science and decided to enroll at Washington State for another year so he could continue rowing.

At WSU, rowing is not a school-funded sport and participants pay their own way.

Having rowed for coach Bob Ernst while attending the University of Washington, about a month into fall classes in Pullman, Worley telephoned his former coach and asked if there any way he could transfer and row for the Huskies.

A week later, he was back in Seattle taking 15 credit hours worth of classes and making preparations for the rowing season. The rest is history.

The next big step in Worley’s rowing career is the Olympics and he has his sights set on 2008. But reaching his goal involves money.

“If he is to continue in his career, it is going to be a funding issue,” Rita Worley said. “David is all gung-ho and he is out on the river at 5 a.m. every day. He has

big plans to go to the Olympics, but money is going to be a problem.”

In addition to training and travel expenses, Rita said a lot of money goes toward just keeping her son fed.

“He eats 8,000 calories a day to keep his strength up for training,” she said. “That’s not 8,000 calories worth of junk food, either.”