AMERICAN ROWING COMES OF AGE 35. The 1897 Cornell-Harvard-Yale Race Rudie Lehmann at Harvard – Cornell Wins A few months after Cook returned from Henley, the Harvard-Yale football rift was settled, but Harvard had a signed commitment to row Cornell at Poughkeepsie for one more year, so Yale had no choice but to reluctantly participate in the 1897 Harvard-Cornell race. They refused, however, to race if IRA members Penn and Columbia were included, so Cornell first raced Yale and Harvard in a preliminary regatta, then six days later raced the others in the Poughkeepsie Regatta. Shortly after the 1896 Henley Regatta, Rudie Lehmann had been hired by Harvard, and he brought with him English Orthodox Technique and equipment, so the race promised to be a reunion of sorts, Lehmann having coached “recent Leander crews, including the men who sent Yale packing at Henley and those who had been left on the start by Cornell.”1329 Crowther: “Harvard was taught the English university stroke [by Lehmann]. The slides were cut down to sixteen inches, the swing was long and hard, or intended to be hard, and the legs helped the finish instead of the centre of the stroke [i.e., were used sequentially after the back swing was completed instead of concurrently with the back swing1330] – the radical difference between the general styles of the two 1329 Dodd, Henley, p. 93 1330 another indication that Lehmann still did not understand the Fairbairn revolution that Muttlebury had brought to Leander Club nearly a decade earlier. See Chapter 15. countries, and something which no American coach had yet attempted to teach.”1331 The English Perspective In 1898, the Rowe & Pitman book came out and was hailed as the most authoritative work ever on our sport. Literally and figuratively, it became the last word on British rowing during the 19th Century. On American rowing, the book stated: “There is reason to believe that American eccentricities displayed at Henley [by Cornell in 1895 and Yale in 1896] have since been either modified or altogether discarded. Cornell and Yale, as well as Harvard, have apparently come to the conclusion that in rowing, America still has something to learn from England. “At any rate, it is the present fashion with all three Universities to copy the English style, and according to Mr. R.C. Lehmann (who has acted recently as the Harvard coach), both Cornell and Yale, as well as his own crew, rowed a very much longer and lower stroke in their last race (1897) than had been their previous custom.”1332 1331 Crowther, p. 120. This conclusion was incorrect. Bob Cook’s Yale crews and Charles Courtney’s Cornell crews of the era were also using their backs first and legs second. 1332 Rowe & Pitman, p. 67 351
