THE SPORT OF ROWING Fifer and Hecht finally lined up against Logg and Price on the water on May 19, 1956. The New York Times: [ARA Regatta, Philadelphia] “With a strong headwind ripping the Schuylkill River into whitecaps, Stanford University’s Jim Pfiffer3280 and Duvall Hecht easily defeated the Olympic Champions, Logg and Price of Rutgers, by ten lengths, with M.I.T. third and N.Y.A.C. fourth. The Penn A.C. crew, Vesper and Old Dominion B.C. were swamped.”3281 Logg: “In ‘56 when we were getting ready for the Olympic Trials, we only got about three months together, and to get ready for an international race takes more than three months. Fifer and Hecht had been together for six or seven months.”3282 The New York Times: [NYRA Annual Regatta, Belleville, New Jersey, May 26, 1956] “Charles Logg and Tom Price of the Rutgers Rowing Club upset James Fifer and Duvall Hecht of Stanford University today in the fifty-sixth annual regatta of the New York Rowing Association. “Logg and Price won the senior pairs- without-coxswain by three-quarters of a length over their West Coast rivals who had been undefeated this season. The time for the mile race on the Passaic River was 5 minutes 22 seconds.”3283 Logg: “We were coming along pretty well. We were getting a little more experience. We were faster off the line, but we were not consistent. At times we were faster, but we were inconsistent.”3284 3280 In those days, it was a badge of honor to have your name misspelled badly by the “Old Gray Lady.” 3281 Admirals Defeat Foes, Whitecaps, The New York Times, May 20, 1956 3282 Logg, op. cit. 3283 Logg and Price Score in Rowing, The New York Times, May27, 1956 3284 Logg, op. cit. Hecht: “We had beaten them so badly, by over ten seconds in the first race on the Schuylkill, that we thought they’d be a piece of cake to beat again, but they weren’t, and they whipped us. “They should have saved it for the Olympic Trials. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. It put us on very solid ground in terms of knowing how hard we were going to have to work, that if we didn’t do everything right, they’d get us.”3285 1956 Olympic Trials Hecht: “The Trials were scheduled just after the end of the collegiate rowing season, so for the last month Jimmy Beggs had his hands full with his Freshman Crew. He sent us off a few weeks early to the regatta site in Syracuse, where Fifer and I continued a regimen that, if anything, was even more rigorous than our Philadelphia routine. Our 500-meter splits got slower, and so we worked harder than ever. “We were toast . . . “Five days before the Trials, Jimmy Beggs arrived. He took one look at us and put a padlock on the boat. He made us take three days completely off, and then he let us back in the pair only for a couple of half- hour workouts during the next two days. We felt like raging lions without any work to do. “But Jimmy was resting us, peaking us for the Trials – I don’t know if ‘peaking’ had even been invented back then! – and the other coaches tut-tutted about his unorthodoxy. But Jim Beggs knew what he was doing, and the pair felt like a feather when we went into competition. “It was only with the passage of time that I realized how courageous it was of Jimmy to make that call. If anything had 3285 Hecht, op. cit. 914
