George C. Hines, hall of fame rower and coach at La Salle, real estate owner, and mentor, has died at 96

George C. Hines, 96, of Philadelphia, hall of fame rower and coach at La Salle College High School, La Salle University, and the Malta Boat Club; cofounder of the Hines Rowing Center in Conshohocken; longtime real estate owner and broker; veteran; and mentor to many, died Saturday, Jan. 27, of vascular dementia at the Artman personal care center in Ambler.

Fascinated by rowboats and model airplanes as a boy in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, Mr. Hines joined the Malta Boat Club on Boathouse Row as a high school senior at La Salle and became a champion rower, revered coach, and influential figure on the Schuylkill for nearly 80 years. Many of his rowers, and there were hundreds over the decades, became lifelong friends and admirers, and they threw sentimental birthday parties for him when he turned 80, 85, 90, 95, and 96.

He rowed at La Salle College, now La Salle University, for four years and won the Dad Vail Regatta in his senior year of 1952. He was team captain at Malta for many years and won the club’s 1963 George Morton Illman Award for service to the local rowing community.

He coached La Salle’s high school team from 1956 to 1968 and won city championships, dramatic races in the Stotesbury Cup and other regattas, and the 1965 national scholastic championship. He was inducted into the high school’s alumni hall of fame in 2009 and athletic hall of fame in 2015.

Mr. Hines coached the La Salle college team from 1969 to 1973, served for years as vice chairman of the Dad Vail Regatta organizing committee, and was a longtime member of the Pennsylvania Barge Club. He was also a judge and referee for what is now the U.S. Rowing Association, the nation’s governing body for rowing.

The winners each year of the boys’ junior quad race at the Stotesbury Cup and varsity eight race at the King’s Head Regatta earn the George C. Hines Trophy, and Malta christened one its boats the George C. Hines in 2012. No one called him Coach or Mr. Hines. Everyone knew him as George, even his rowers, and they dubbed themselves “George’s boys.”

“He was a people person,” said his wife, Lois Trench-Hines. “He’d rather be with his boys than anywhere else. He never raised his voice or cursed and always said he liked coaching high school best because he was helping make boys into young men.”

Some of his rowers saw Mr. Hines as a conductor, and they were his orchestra, and they marveled at how he could refine their individual strokes and then unite them into a symphony on the river. He often wore a tie and jacket on the job when he was a young coach, and he followed their boat in his launch and barked instructions through a 3-foot-long megaphone.

He was usually all business at practice but lighthearted and friendly on dry land, they said, and he gave his rowers nicknames like Beaner, Ace, and Earthquake. Members of the Mt. St. Joseph Academy crew team noted his “generosity, vision, and never-ending support” in a recent Facebook tribute, and former La Salle rower Christopher Doyle said in a 2009 tribute: “His influence on his athletes was immediate, powerful, and long-lasting.”

Mr. Hines and his wife founded the Hines Rowing Center in 2005, and it has grown to feature many programs and host more than a dozen high school and college teams. “HRC is named and dedicated to the legacy of George Hines,” his wife said on the center’s website.

George Charles Hines was born Dec. 8, 1927, in Philadelphia. He liked to draw and work with his hands as a boy, and he became interested in mechanics and science at St. Francis Xavier elementary school.

He graduated high school at La Salle in 1946 and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from La Salle College in 1952. He served two years in the Navy after high school as a flight mechanic in Norfolk, Va., and almost became a lawyer after attending Temple University Law School.

Instead, he joined the family’s real estate brokerage firm and went on to manage and own several apartment buildings. He retired about 10 years ago.

He met fellow rower Lois Trench in 1972, and they married in 1979, and lived in Fairmount. “He turned out to be more of a romantic than I thought he was,” his wife said.

Mr. Hines played trombone in his Red Lion Jazz Band and could fix anything around the house and his apartment buildings. He remodeled his second home in Brigantine, designed and built a special practice barge that could accommodate 12 rowers at once, and made distinctive drinking mugs for every club on Boathouse Row.

“I saw one of his former rowers kiss him on the cheek once and said, ‘Why did he kiss you?’” his wife said. Mr. Hines answered in one word. Respect.

Funeral services for Mr. Hines were held Feb. 3.

Donations in his name may be made to the La Salle College High School rowing program, 8605 Cheltenham Ave., Wyndmoor, Pa. 19038.