THE SPORT OF ROWING and body swing were smooth and pleasing to the eye. Burk’s layback was limited to only -5°, despite Callow having coached him at Penn to lay back -40° or more, but his body swing as a whole was by no means radical. As we shall soon see, his concurrent usage of the legs, back and arms to a relatively upright finish mirrored the evolutionary direction of the 2nd Generation Conibear technique of Al Ulbrickson and Tom Bolles beginning in the early 1930s and reaching its height after World War II.2024 The University of Washington crew that beat Burk’s Penn Eight in the 1936 Olympic Trials had body swing from +25° to -25°, considerably less than the norm of the time. No. Limiting body swing was not Joe Burk’s greatest innovation. Ratio? What seemed to set Burk apart from his contemporaries was his rhythm, ratio and pacing, his ability to row an entire race evenly at a 1-to-1 ratio and not slow down. He rowed the entire 1938 Henley final at close to 40 strokes per minute, certainly unique for a single sculler, but there truly is nothing new under the sun, and there had been precedents for Joe’s high ratings. As mentioned above, professional scull- ers of the 1870s had regularly rowed with ratings in the 40s. Barney Biglin used to brag, “Why, man alive, when we were win- ning championship races so fast that we could not count them, we used to hit it at 50 or even higher during spurts. The 50-to-a- minute stroke consisted chiefly of arm work, and forearm work at that, but it enabled us to get so far ahead that we could take a rest, so to speak.”2025 2024 See Chapter 59 ff. 2025 Newspaper clipping, collection of Bernard Biglin, John Biglin‘s great grandson. Three years after high schooler Joe Burk had taken a train to watch their predecessors in Poughkeepsie, the 1932 California crew had to row much of the Olympic Eights final at 40 or above because their closest oppo- nent, gli Scarronzoni of Italy,2026 wouldn’t let them take the rating down. The New York Times: “At no time over the 2,000 meters were the blue-shirted men lower than 39 or 40 strokes to the minute, and toward the end their minimum was 42. “Italy maintained an extremely high stroke throughout the race, which is charac- teristic of its style of rowing, featured like the American, by its short back swing, choppy stroke and short slide. [my empha- sis]”2027 The margin of victory over Italy in 1932 was at most a quarter of a deck. Interestingly, the last time Joe Burk ever raced in an eight was at the 1936 Olympic Trials, and his Penn graduate boat rowed the entire 2,000 meters at 40. They led for 1,600 meters before being rowed down. Perhaps it was here that Joe got the idea that he could make it those last 400 meters with just a bit more training. No, Joe Burk’s true innovation was imagination! Even Splits At the 1939 Henley Regatta, Joe deviat- ed from his normal race plan, and he nearly regretted it. “A funny thing happened my second year in the Diamond Sculls during the final against Roger Verey from [Akademicki Związek Sportowy2028 Krakow in] Poland. 2026 See Chapter 73. 2027 Allison Danzig, U.S. Eight Retains Title in Olympics as 80,000 Look On, The New York Times, August 14, 1932 2028 Academic Sports Association 554