THE WINDS OF CHANGE middle of which was the Harvard-Yale Race, which we won with a course record, I think. “In any event, I will tell you that following the Harvard-Yale race, we took a couple of days off over the weekend. When we got back together to start training again for the Trials, the boat was horrible. It was just like a ton of lead! It was absolutely terrible! “I can remember talking to people on the phone and them asking, ‘How’s it going?’ My answer was, ‘It’s going really crappy. It just isn’t moving. We have no idea what’s wrong, but the boat just isn’t going.’ “It never felt good again in New London, and when we went up to Syracuse and started practicing on the canals, it never felt good up there either . . . “ . . . until the last time we were out on the water before we raced, and I will never to this day know what changed, whether Jim did something to the boat, but we rowed up the canal and started coming back doing some higher strokes, and all of a sudden it was like someone clicked on a switch, and the boat was right back to where it was.”2564 Wailes: “Jim was out on the water with us on one of the sheltered canals working to get the stroke rate up to 34 and 36. The boat was flying. You just couldn’t pull hard enough! ”2565 Cooke: “The day before the first heats, Jim had us row up the canal out of sight past the Syracuse Boathouse, then turn around and start back with a strong 28 strokes per minute, raising it in two stages to 34, and then, just before we came into view of the boathouse, when he knew all of our potential competition would be standing on the dock or at the boathouse door, he had us lower the stroke and power on. 2564 Becklean, personal conversation, 2005 2565 Wailes, p. 3 “We flashed past the Boathouse at 24 with enormous run on the boat, steady as a rock, poised, appearing to effortlessly kick the boat along. “The expected effect was achieved. There were audible sighs among the spectators . . . and silence from the competitors.”2566 Becklean: “And the swing was back! Nobody knew where it had been, but that night we all knew we would win the Trials.”2567 Olympic Trials At the Trials, Time Magazine was unashamedly rooting for the Annapolis 1952 defending champions to win their second trip to the Olympics: “The U.S. Naval Academy’s famed ‘Admirals,’ winners of 29 straight races and the 1952 Olympics, had been recalled from active duty in the Navy and Air Force to try again. They did not do well in early races, but observers blamed it on lack of condition. “Last week, as the crews lined up for the final test on Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York, the last trace of sedentary lard was gone, and the Admirals were as ready as they ever would be.”2568 Heat 1 The Thursday opening heats had been delayed a day by whitecaps caused by 25 mph northwesterly winds. When they were finally run late Friday, Cornell raced hard and “shattered the myth of the invincible Admirals”2569 in a very emotional one-length victory over the Olympic Champions in 6:41. 2566 Cooke, op. cit. 2567 Becklean, op. cit. 2568 Time Magazine, They Never Come Back, July 9, 1956 2569 Mendenhall, Oar, p. 8 711
