INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL cross-wind. Also, I was in Lane 4, not Lane 3, so there was only one lane separating us. “I had raced Tom nearly every day for a year, so I knew how far I could let him get ahead of me and still sprint by him in the end. “And that’s what I did!” The singles final came only minutes before the final of the eights between Harvard and Penn,3928 and so the pair of singles teammates were still at the finish line when the two college crews ended their struggle only four inches apart. John and Tom can be seen in all the famous finish line photos, straining to see who had won. Third at the Trials, two and a half lengths behind, was 1965 and ‘67 U.S. Singles Champion Bill Maher, who had rowed with Tom in a Detroit Boat Club Four in ‘64 and had placed sixth in the singles at the European Championships in Vichy in 1967. Maher had spent a semester at Northeastern under Freshman Coach Bill Miller.3929 He had been a member of the composite 1966 World finalist U.S. Coxed- four put together by Kent Mitchell.3930 John Nunn had been eliminated in his semi-final at the Trials by a couple of issues. Nunn: “I had been rowing up in Marina del Rey, which was closer to my work. I would put my boat in the water from a Union ‘76 fuel dock. “I had had all kinds of problems. I didn’t know much about rigging. I apparently had my port pin bent inwards and didn’t realize it. Then I got to the regatta, and it was a crosswind, and I’d turn into the wind. I couldn’t go straight. “I talked to some guy, and he said, ‘Maybe you have a bent pin,’ and so I checked. I had 3° forward pitch at the catch 3928 See Chapters 95 and 102. 3929 See Chapter 122. 3930 See Chapter 102. and 13° at the finish. I fixed it, but it was only three days before the Trials or something. When I was just rowing it was okay, but I couldn’t do a racing start without crabbing because I’d been leaning so much to compensate for the fact that the boat was rolling over. “Also I was sick. I had some sort of stomach flu or something, so in the Singles Trials I didn’t do very well at all.”3931 Nunn and Maher Nunn: “Tom had been second in the Singles Trials, and Bill Maher was third, and they knew each other from Detroit, but Bill did not want to row with Tom. He thought they wouldn’t make a good combination, on the water or off. “I sort of knew Bill. He and I had been on the Vichy team together, plus we’d rowed against each other at the Canadian Henley. “So Bill and I got together, and it went really well right away. “Bill was really strong. He was shorter, like 6’1” [185 cm] to my 6’6” [198 cm] 210 [95kg], but power-wise we were about equal strength.”3932 Tales of their training schedule remain legendary at LBRA. Nunn: “There is the old Model-T hill- climb course on Signal Hill, really steep, and we used to run it from stop sign to stop sign, like six reps. Bill was a really fast runner. He finished something like fortieth in the Boston Marathon. He was fast, but on the hills we were fairly even, so it was good. I’d win one, and he’d win one, but it was really tough. “Another thing we used to do was run the Los Angeles Coliseum. You used to be able to walk in there any time and run the steps. 3931 Nunn, personal conversation, 2008 3932 Ibid. It was like a hundred and twenty rows 1083
