THE SPORT OF ROWING before the finish we knew that Gold Medals were waiting for us. A sensation in this race was that the Czechs and French beat the Americans, while the Italians came in sixth.”4113 Perry: “I believe we should have medaled. The funny thing was that in all the training we did, nobody ever said, ‘Bronze is a big deal,’ or ‘For goodness sakes, go for the Silver.’ It was never mentioned, so I know it seems weird, but going into the final, it was all about the Gold for us. If we came in second, as far as we were concerned we had lost!”4114 Bos: “During the race, I sensed that Germany was clearly out there, more than open water. I didn’t turn around and look or anything, but when they’re out of your natural peripheral vision, you kind of know that. “When you reach the 1,500 meter mark and you know someone’s got open water on you, it’s just not possible to keep that out of your mind and row as if you were battling for the lead. “I think the Germans and the Canadians were clearly better than us on that day, but the difference between third and fifth was less than a length [3.22 seconds]. The Czechs and the French were not that far ahead of us. If we had understood what a big deal any medal in the Olympics is, I think we could have gone for it. “In the end, the fact that the Germans were clearly gone on us probably affected whether we medaled a lot more than that defeat in practice by the LWRC guys. “I can remember when we came back in from the final, the first question from Captain Coward was, ‘Did you feel you rowed well?’ “I looked at him and said, ‘Yes, we did.’ 4113 Qtd. by Edwards, p. 113 4114 Perry, personal conversation, 2006 “The final was not a bad race for us. Rowing was changing, and we found out the hard way that it had already changed in Europe, and the U.S. had been left behind. Appreciating Lou Lindsey Peter Bos: “What coach has ever taken his crew to the Olympics and then been pushed out the following year? That’s what happened to poor Lou Lindsey. “The Academy made that decision because the Plebes, who had made the final at the Trials, were really reluctant to be coached by Lou. All of this forced the athletic director to conclude that it was not working out and to replace him with Paul Quinn. “Lou has participated in our reunions from the beginning, but our 45th Reunion was the first time we invited Paul. “I’m glad we did. It cleared the air and helped heal a lot of old wounds. Lou said some very nice things about Paul.”4115 As shall be discussed at great length in later chapters, world rowing in general and United States rowing in particular were standing on the threshold of an avalanche of new ideas about technique, training and equipment. Lou Lindsey independently came up with many of the innovations that today we take for granted, and he did it years before he had even heard about Karl Adam,4116 the coach of the West German Eight that won the 1960 Olympics. Today history remembers Adam and not Lindsey as the trailblazer of the mid-20th Century, but history can be unfair . . . Unfortunately, the U.S. was not quite ready for Lou Lindsey in 1960, and even his team only reluctantly followed his suggestions. After they lost in Rome, Lindsey’s ideas were largely forgotten, only 4115 Bos, op. cit. 4116 See Chapter 91 ff. 1136
