THE SPORT OF ROWING potential oarsmen and proposed to Howard that either he select them as a unit and allow them to use their own training methods or they would form a pirate crew and train independently for the race. As an American, Rubin was personally castigated by much of the press.3007 Couldn’t make this stuff up! Reed Rubin was already the first American Blue to lose a Boat Race for Oxford since 1927.3008 Among the mutineers were Charlie Grimes3009 of the 1956 Olympic Champion Yale Eight and D.C.R. Edwards, the 1958 Oxford stroke and Jumbo’s own son! So this was serious and substantive! Howard vowed to press on without them all. They would not be selected. There would be no race-off. The machinations went on for five endless months. There were meetings public and private, meetings held, meetings refused. Finally in mid-October, according to Dodd, mutineers Grimes from Yale and M.J.W. Hall, the O.U.B.C. Secretary, went to see Howard privately and “suggested that if he dropped Jumbo and accepted three Yale coaches whom they named, they would cooperate. The coaches they proposed were all from the 1956 Yale crew who had won the Olympic Games Gold Medal, the crew with whom Grimes had rowed.”3010 Howard remained firm, and two weeks later on the second of November the mutiny collapsed. Four of the original nine mutineers would eventually row in the 1959 Oxford boat, which won by six lengths. Rubin, behind in his studies, was not among them, and Grimes left the squad shortly after the reconciliation due to a dispute with Jumbo 3007 Dodd, op. cit., p. 162 3008 Ibid, p. 163 3009 See Chapter 67. 3010 Dodd, op. cit., p. 163 over his insistence on wearing his trademark railroad engineer’s hat.3011 Dodd: “Commenting on the end of hostilities, what Rubin said at the time was: ‘All I wish to say is that Oxford are going to beat Cambridge next year.’ “Ronnie Howard learned much that he would bring to bear on Oxford as coach for many years afterwards.”3012 This would turn out to be the first of two major Oxford Mutinies during the 20th Century staged by dissident Americans. The second in 1987 will be discussed in Chapter 144. Dodd: “Rubin was the public face of the 1959 mutiny but not necessarily the instigator (but he’s foreign/American, and therefore guilty, says Fleet Street). More seriously, although this mutiny lasted five months, as you say, it started after the election of president in May-ish and was settled by October when the training and selection began, so everyone knew where they were and there was no disruption during preparation for the race; unlike the ‘87 mutiny, which rumbled under the surface from October and exploded after Christmas, going pretty much up to the wire in March. “It’s interesting that both Howard and Rubin were involved in the ‘87 mutiny. Topolski and Macdonald3013 sought and got support from Howard – a hard liner who wished to hang, draw and quarter traitors – while Rubin offered to chair a three-man arbitration board (each side to put one up) and fly over on the Concorde to hold the tribunal, an offer embraced by the mutineers and their college captain supporters but 3011 See Chapter 69. 3012 Dodd, op. cit., pp. 167-8 3013 Dan Topolski and Donald Macdonald were the 1987 coach and OUBC president respectively who withstood the second Oxford Mutiny. See Chapter 144. 840
