INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL “‘What are you doing? Now my handles are all wet!’ Sy was really pissed. He then went out and raced the best singles race in his career, winning the Bronze Medal behind Ivanov and McKenzie, and beating Groen. “Sy’s outburst must have taken his mind off of how he was going to beat those guys and really settled him down, which is exactly why Conn had dipped the handles in the water in the first place.”3847 Cromwell: “I came in third again, only four seconds behind Ivanov. I’m not saying I could have won, but I’d have been more successful if I’d committed myself totally [to rowing and not sailing]. You do two things, and you get half of each.”3848 1963 In 1963, having already won two Bronze Medals in the singles behind Ivanov, Cromwell won Gold in the singles at the Pan Ams and placed second at the European Championships in a double with his new friend and protégé, Don Spero. 1964 Prior to the Olympic Singles Trials in 1964, Cromwell won the Diamond Sculls at Henley. Don Spero then won the Trials with Cromwell second. In third was Jim Storm, a previously unknown young sculler from the West Coast. Jim Storm James Eugene Storm (1941- ), 6’8” 202cm 209lb. 95kg, is a quiet man with a studious look behind his eyeglasses. 3847 Mitchell, personal correspondence, 2010 3848 The Oarsman, op. cit. Storm: “I learned to row at the old San Diego Rowing Club down at the foot of 5th Street on San Diego Bay. My dad ran a Sea Scout ship which was sponsored by the club, and Kearney Johnston3849 said to my dad, ‘I hear you have a son who is fifteen or sixteen. Why don’t you bring him down?’ “I was not a natural athlete in any way. I had done some rowboat rowing and sailed some. Kearney put me out in a wherry, and I found that I could do pretty well, so I decided, ‘Well, I’m going to go to the Olympics!’ “I started rowing a couple of days a week and on weekends. “A couple of years later I went off to Pomona College, but they didn’t have any crew. When I was home on vacation and in the summer I would go down to the Rowing Club and row a couple, three times a week. We’d basically row wherries over to Glorietta Bay3850 and back. We didn’t have any shells. Shells were a rare bird back then. “Pomona had a swimming team, and I decided to do that during my last year in college. I started training in the summer of 1961, the summer before my senior year. I joined the swim team over at the Mission Beach Plunge3851 in order to learn how to do flip-turns, but I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to go rowing a couple of times a week, too, because I’m going to go to the Olympics.’ “People looked at me and said, ‘Well . . . yeah . . . okay.’ 3849 a legend at SDRC, Kearney taught generations to row from 1930 until shortly before his death in 2003. 3850 SDRC was then situated at the foot of 5th Street on the Embarcadero in downtown San Diego. Glorietta Bay is a protected inlet on Coronado Island in the shadow of the famous Hotel del Coronado around 2 mi. or 3k across San Diego Bay. 3851 an historic indoor pool next to the roller coaster near Mission Bay in San Diego. 1059
