THE SPORT OF ROWING and windy as Quinsigamond had been flat and calm.”3222 NAAO Official Rowing Guide: “On the first day, this crew won a closely contested heat with Hungary, Sweden and Egypt. 1 USA 2 HUN 3 SWE 4 EGY 8:02.1 8:04.1 8:07.6 8:29.3 “In the semi-finals on the following day, while [they] finished fourth, there was less than two seconds difference between the second and fourth positions. Seldom have three crews been as tightly bunched as were Belgium, Poland and the United States. 1 ITA 2 BEL 3 POL 4 USA 8:07.6 8:11.4 8:12.1 8:13.0 “This defeat, however, put [them] into the second repêchage on Tuesday, when [they] lost by eight-tenths of a second to Germany, with the Soviet Union finishing third and last.”3223 1 GER 2 USA 3 URS 7:54.7 7:55.5 8:08.4 Americans were done. Despite a very creditable effort, the The Germans advanced and later earned the Silver Medal behind the new Olympic Champions from France. 1 FRA 2 GER 3 DEN 4 ITA 5 FIN 8:28.6 8:32.1 8:34.9 8:38.4 8:40.8 Hecht: “We won our first race, but lost the next two. “I used to have a million excuses, but I think the truth is that we had rowed our best race at the Trials. After all, that was what 3222 Hecht, op. cit. 3223 NAAO Official Rowing Guide, 1953 3224 Hecht, op. cit. 3225“Mr. Beggs” was my own freshman coach at Penn in 1963-64. 3226 See Chapter 65. 3227 Beggs, op. cit. we had set our sights on, winning the Trials, and we didn’t have another effort like that left in us that year. “Our Olympic dreams were over, and the sooner we could get away, the better for me. Rowing was history . . . something we had done in college.”3224 After Helsinki Immediately after the Games, Jimmy Beggs climbed the Matterhorn. His personal quest to be an amateur Olympian presumably at an end, Jimmy “turned professional” by accepting the paid position as the Freshman Coach at the University of Pennsylvania3225 offered by his friend, the former Yale Freshman Coach Joe Burk.3226 Beggs: “I was going to Penn specifically to work with Joe, who was the best single sculler in the country. I anticipated having to do a lot of work because I very quickly settled on Fifer and Hecht to man the boat for the next Olympic Trials.”3227 Meanwhile, Hecht, having graduated from Stanford, enlisted as a Naval Aviation Cadet or NAVCAD – it was during the Korean War, and military service was mandatory – and was sent to flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Fifer left Stanford the following year with a commission from NROTC. Shortly thereafter, he, too, opted for Pensacola. After flight training, Fifer was stationed in Rhode Island and Hecht in North Carolina. Hecht, now an instructor, would pick up Fifer on Friday afternoons, and the two of them would spend the weekend bucking the jet stream westbound and then 900
