THE SPORT OF ROWING and short slide were obviously as exaggerated as they were tiring. [my emphasis]”1356 The day after the race, Mark Odell wrote: “The newsstand at the station had reaped a harvest that morning, and for some miles all was quiet in the car while we read in those great metropolitan dailies that see all and know all, just how we did it, and like a revelation it came to us: . . . how Cornell was the greatest and most glorious institution in the country, and Charles E. Courtney the greatest coach that ever yelled through a megaphone, which we had known all along.”1357 Young: “Odell gained notoriety from his writings about the 1897 race. He wrote articles for his hometown newspaper in Baldwinsville and a long description, ‘Story of the Race and Return to Ithaca,’ for Cornell Era. When Odell returned home, he was welcomed as a hero, and a parade was held in his honor. “With his typical reserve, Odell later ‘Contrary to the enthusiastic said, imaginings of many of my home Baldwinsville friends, I was not the only one in the crew. There were seven other oarsmen and a coxswain in the crew which won the race.’ “A picture of the 1897 crew still hangs on the wall of Cornell’s crew house, a lasting tribute to the ‘boys whose faithful training and earnest work, have combined to make Cornell pre-eminent in Intercollegiate Rowing.’1358 Lundin: “Odell returned to Cornell in 1947 for the 50th reunion of the class of 1897. All of his fellow crew members were alive and well and attended the reunion, except for their coxswain. They took out an eight and rowed it for old times’ sake, likely not equaling their IRA championship time that made Cornell ‘champions of America’ in 1897, but still rowing with enthusiasm and love of the sport.”1359 Postscript Rudie Lehmann had to satisfy himself with other achievements besides winning races in America. Century Magazine: “While the visits of Mr. R.C. Lehmann, the foremost English varsity coach, did not win victories for Harvard, his influence achieved more important results; for he taught the undergraduate that rowing was, by right, a pastime, and that where one eight was seen on the Charles, a dozen ought to flourish.”1360 According to current Harvard Coach Harry Parker,1361 it was Rudie Lehmann who was responsible for the installation of indoor tanks in Newell Boathouse at Harvard in 1900, a facility still used today by Harvard oarsmen.1362 1356 Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale, p. 218 1357 Qtd. by Lundin, p. 10 1358 Cornell Navy 1359 Lundin, p. 17 1360 Paine, Century, p. 503 1361 See Chapter 100 ff 1362 Wang, p. 2 360
