THE SUNSET OF CONIBEAR coached the freshmen under Head Coach Jimmy Beggs4038 before leaving to begin a business career. In the spring of ‘54, Beggs accepted the job of Freshman Coach under Joe Burk at Penn,4039 and the Stanford crew turned to Lou. Lindsey: “After the 1954 Cal-Stanford race, Dan Ayrault, the captain-elect, and Rowd Davis, the Varsity coxswain, came up to me and asked if I would coach them the next year. I was working as an investment counselor, and I got permission to leave in the afternoons and go down there.”4040 Lou Lindsey developed the most successful Stanford rowing program in nearly half a century. He hired USC-grad Conn Findlay4041 to coach the freshmen, and in 1956, Findlay, Ayrault and coxswain Kurt Seiffert won coxed-pairs Olympic Gold on Lake Wendouree. The 1956 Coxless-Pair was also made up of Stanford grads.4042 Lindsey: “Our Varsity beat Cal and Washington at the 1957 Newport Regatta, which preceded today’s San Diego Crew Classic. That crew went on to finish third in the IRA4043.”4044 However, when Lou Lindsey was hired by the Naval Academy in the fall of 1959, the Midshipmen had never heard of him. Peter Bos: “We were always respectful to Lou. I know this because I was the team captain, and never would have agreed to or allowed anything less. There was one day at the 1960 Olympics when Lou came 4038 See Chapter 81. 4039 See Chapter 65. 4040 Lindsey, op. cit. 4041 See Chapter 82. 4042 See Chapter 81. 4043 The only other Stanford crew to medal at the IRA before 2007 was the second-place 1915 crew. 4044 Lindsey, op. cit. separately to the race course at Lake Albano and got hung up for something like two hours in some traffic snarl. We knew we needed to practice, and so we went out without him, but he was our coach. “If I had to characterize our relationship with him, it was that of a headstrong bunch of 22-year olds who, having loved and been coached by Rusty and Paul Quinn the previous three years, found it hard to immediately give Lou our heart-felt devotion – which all leaders have to earn.”4045 Stan Pocock: “Rusty had retired the year before [the Olympics], and the crew still considered themselves to be his boys, a kind thing to do for Rusty’s sake, but certainly a poke in the eye for Lindsey, their new coach. “This mirrored Rusty’s own experience when he first took over from Buck Walsh at Navy, and their varsity squad accorded him a similar lack of confidence.4046 “History does repeat itself!”4047 The 1960 Season at Navy Perry: “We had a good record behind us by 1960. We had won the IRA as plebes and were second, third, second at the IRA the next three years, and the class after us had come in third at the Sprints and second at the IRA as plebes. “I was looking at pictures just the other day, and my God, was I skinny, but we also had some really good athletes on the crew. “For instance, we had this guy, Joe Baldwin, the Brigade Boxing Champion who used to spar with Cassius Clay before he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. “In 1960, our Varsity, Jayvee and Plebe boats came in third, second, first at the 4045 Bos, personal conversation, 2006 4046 See Chapter 64. 4047 S. Pocock, p. 159 1119
