THE SPORT OF ROWING Stan Pocock: “Washington pushed Cal down the course, never lagging by more than a few feet. With only twenty strokes to go, Washington’s coxswain had not called for a sprint even though they were still be- hind. “When he looked over his shoulder and saw the finish line fast approaching, Charlie McCarthy tried to snatch victory from defeat in the last few meters of the race. He went into a finishing sprint on his own. The crew responded, but it was too late.”2156 Rod Johnson, Washington Varsity 7- seat: “About half-way through the race, I can remember thinking, ‘They’re just sitting there half a length ahead of us. Why aren’t we catching them?’ “I used to yell a bit during races. I know you’re not supposed to, but I have kicked myself around the block for half a century now. If I had just said one or two words, we would have gone past them in the next twen- ty strokes! “But I didn’t . . . and we just sat there. “Bobby Lee, our coxswain, wasn’t one to say much during a race. He was usually pretty quiet, and that’s just the way he’d coxed all year, so I don’t remember him say- ing anything until he told us to take it up. “Finally, he said, ‘Okay, take it up.’ We took it up, but on the seventh stroke we crossed the finish line. It should have been twenty strokes! “Before we knew it, the race was over . . . and we had lost . . . “I remember just sitting there waiting to wake up from a bad dream.”2157 Meanwhile, the Washington Jayvee stern-four was in Princeton waiting to com- pete in the Olympic Trials for coxed-fours the following week. They were all watching their teammates’ defeat. 2156 S. Pocock, p. 43 2157 Johnson, op. cit. Gus Giovanelli: “The Varsity was a ter- rific crew. They were so much faster than California. Nobody could have touched them but themselves. Their cockiness surely got to them.”2158 Al Morgan: “It was so close! I have my opinion as to who won, but they gave it to California.”2159 Bob Martin was less charitable. “We were all standing on the shore when they lost. We were sorry for Ulbrickson. We were sorry for the school, but we weren’t sorry for those guys. “They lost the Trials because they didn’t row hard enough. Hell, they had beaten Cal- ifornia twice already. There was no ques- tion they were a better crew! Everybody knew it. “Al told us, ‘If any one of you had been in that boat, they would have won that race!’ “After we made the Olympic Team in the four, we were all damn glad they weren’t along. If they had made it, too, the Seattle papers would have completely ignored us and just covered them. Even if we won the Olympics, there might have been only an extra paragraph saying, ‘ . . . and the four won, too.’ “Another thing. When they lost their race at the Trials, that’s the last we saw of any of them . . . except for Norm Buvick.”2160 Rod Johnson: “We all went out to Fire Island with the MIT crew. Somebody had a cottage out there. It was a lost weekend.”2161 After the eight lost, the four also took off to clear their heads before their own competition began. Bob Martin: “At Princeton over the Fourth of July, we rented a car, went down 2158 Giovanelli, op. cit. 2159 Morgan, personal conversation, 2005 2160 Martin, op. cit. 2161 Johnson, op. cit. 596
