THE WINDS OF CHANGE The Navy oarsmen still have vivid memories today of that semi-final, captured brilliantly in the great film documentary, The Great Eight: Detweiler: “Since it was terribly hot weather and high humidity, and we were all so skinny, we didn’t have a pound of fat between the eight of us, we had decided before the race to sort of take it easy that day and to just row whatever we had to row to stay out in front.”2322 Dick Murphy, 4-seat: “California was over in Lane 1 or 2, in the lee of a very high bank. We were out in Lane 6 or 7, and because of the prevailing wind, we were rowing in whitecaps while they were rowing on what essentially looked like a mirror.”2323 Detweiler: “As we got to the last half of the race, California began to move on us because in order to get into the final it was very important for them to come in second in that race. “So the real race was between California and Wisconsin for that second place . . . ”2324 Ed Stevens: “I think that we might have been a little bit asleep at that point and didn’t realize that they were coming up so fast. “So at the very end, maybe the last ten or fifteen strokes, our coxswain panicked a little bit and said, ‘We really have to row!’”2325 Detweiler: “ . . . and when we went across that finish line, it was just in doubt who had won that race until they had developed some film, and we had won the race by less than a couple feet. “After the race was over we had time to think that one over, and we decided there was going to be no more of this! 2322 Detweiler, op. cit. 2323 Murphy, qtd. by The Great Eight 2324 Detweiler, op. cit. 2325 Stevens, qtd. by The Great Eight “I was captain of the crew, and we called the guys together and decided from then on it was going to be all out. Every time we rowed, it was going to be all out!”2326 The Trials Final In the final, it wasn’t even close. Frank Shakespeare: “When we got into the final, we started out at a high stroke, and I heard later that poor Rusty was saying, ‘They’ve got to settle more! They’re not going to make it all the way.’ “But we made it all the way, and we really poured it on, and we were all happy, and I think that was the best race we ever rowed.”2327 Detweiler: “We won going away, with a length and a half of open water. They took pictures at the finish line, and we were the only people there. “Nobody else!”2328 Stevens: “We set a new course record of 5:57.8 that day, the fastest time in the U.S. that year for 2,000 meters.”2329 The New York Times: “Gliding smoothly over the calm waters as thousands watched from shore, Navy, coached by Rusty Callow, led Princeton at the end by approximately two and a half lengths. “Except for the early stages when California had an edge before Navy settled down from its racing start, the Midshipmen rowed at 32 to 36 beats, higher than they had maintained in winning throughout the East. “By the 1,000 meter mark, Navy had gone out well ahead of the Tigers, who were keeping a place ahead of the rival crews from the Pacific Coast. “In the last 500 meters, it was only a matter of how much Navy had left. The 2326 Detweiler, op. cit. 2327 Shakespeare, qtd. by The Great Eight 2328 Detweiler, op. cit. 2329 Stevens, correspondence to G. Callow, 1995 647
