Allan Borghard, 82; educator, rowing coach

Allan A. Borghard, a former engineer and retired educator, passed along his passion for the sport of rowing to two generations of Long Island students.

Even while battling lymphoma for the past year, Borghard continued to coach the crew team at Riverhead High School.

"He was coaching two weeks ago," said his son, Max Borghard of Hillsborough, N.J., head coach of Rutgers University women's crew team. The illness "didn't slow him down."

Allan Borghard, who lived in Calverton, died Tuesday at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. He was 82.

Born in Yonkers, Borghard started rowing in 1945, when he joined the New Rochelle Rowing Club, winning a national championship in the lightweight men's squad two years later, his son said.

Borghard attended Rutgers, where he competed on the crew team. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1951.

He then joined the Air Force, serving as a first lieutenant from 1951 to 1953 in Berlin, where his family said he rowed with the Berliner Ruder Club.

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Borghard later worked for the Sperry Corp., a Lake Success-based manufacturing firm, where he met his future wife, Joyce. The couple were married 55 years, raising four children on Long Island.

Borghard left Sperry for the Levittown School District, where he taught modern industrial technology at MacArthur High School from 1964 to 1988, and then served as a part-time computer technician for 17 years.

During the early 1960s, Borghard coached crew teams at what is now Stony Brook University and the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University in Brookville.

Explaining his father's love of the sport, Max Borghard said, "I think he liked it because it was a very healthy sport. It was an outdoor sport and it was a challenging sport. It really taught a lot, in terms of character [and] endurance."

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Borghard was a founding member of the Sagamore Rowing Association in Oyster Bay, and coached students from several Long Island high schools over the years.

Riverhead High School athletic director William Groth called Borghard "very committed" to the team.

Cold Spring Harbor High School named its boathouse after his father, Max Borghard said.

Joyce Borghard said her husband had a "light-handed touch" with students, adding, "He was a solid person. I could always count on him."

Besides his wife and son, Borghard is survived by daughters Catherine Jaworowski of Wading River, and Elizabeth Reilly of Tompkins Cove, N.Y.; another son, William Borghard of Farmingdale, N.J.; a sister, Elaine Hastall of Mesa, Ariz.; and seven grandchildren.

A memorial service for Borghard, whose body was to be cremated, is scheduled for noon Nov. 26 at North Shore United Methodist Church in Wading River.