THE SPORT OF ROWING crew, in which the four men in the bow work on opposite sides from what is standard procedure. “Coach Parker and his men say the stiffer English oar is a factor in their success, enabling them to take hold of the water more securely and operate their slides in the different manner they do. “Rival coaches have marveled at the precision of its bladework, the powerful catch with which it takes hold of the water, the immaculate cleanliness of the release and the remarkable control of the slides in coming up at a uniform rate to the catch. “Beautifully matched in size, between 6’3” and 6’5”,4571 the eight men fit together like peas in a pod, and they work in a unison of symmetrical, cadenced effort behind a stroke oar with rare sense of pace. “No American crew within memory has provoked such superlatives as has Harvard this season.”4572 Parker’s mentor, Joe Burk, called the 1965 Harvard Varsity the “greatest American crew there has ever been, college or club.”4573 The New York Times: “In its first race, it broke the record on the Charles River at Cambridge, Massachusetts for 1¾ miles by better than ten seconds. It its next outing it lowered the mark on Princeton’s Carnegie Lake by more than twenty seconds. It continued its invincibility in winning the sprint championships by a record margin and left Yale far behind in their four-mile race at New London. “College coaches have labeled Harvard the fastest crew in history, superior to the fabulous Cornell eights of Charles (Pop) Courtney, the masterpieces of Ed Leader at 4571 191 and 196 cm. 4572 Allison Danzig, Harvard and Vesper to Meet in ‘Boat Race of the Century’ at Henley Regatta, The New York Times, June 27, 1965 4573 Hugh Wall, Never Before – At Harvard or in History, Sports Illustrated, June 28, 1965, p. 36 Yale and Tom Bolles at Harvard, the wondrous Navy Admirals of Rusty Callow and the creations of Stork Sanford, Al Ulbrickson, Jim Ten Eyck, Jim Rice, the Glendons and Ky Ebright. “At the age of 29, Harry Parker in his third year as Harvard coach finds himself ranked with the greatest.”4574 The Sports Illustrated Jinx The adulation must have been a heady experience for young Harry and his crew. A few days later, journalist Robert Lipsyte called them “the most vaunted set of sweeps-pullers since Cleopatra’s barge slaves.”4575 The June 28, 1965 Sports Illustrated cover story labeled the Harvard crew the world’s best, but when it really counted, they fell short . . . and again it was at the hands of Allen Rosenberg. That Sports Illustrated cover became infamous in rowing circles as a jinx, because before the week was out, the 1965 “world’s best crew” had lost to Vesper Boat Club in the first round of Henley’s Grand Challenge Cup competition. Penn’s St. Anthony Hall4576 coxswain Arthur Sculley: “I remember looking at the Vesper boat just before the race and seeing eight copies of the front cover attached in front of each oarsman’s seat!”4577 Just as in the Olympic Trials the year before, Parker had been trumped again by Rosenberg. The New York Times: “Harvard, the winner of every race it had entered since losing to Vesper in the Olympic Trials last 4574 Danzig, op. cit. 4575 Robert Lipsyte, Henley Starts to Separate Flotsam From the Fleet, The New York Times, July 1, 1965 4576 See Chapter 94. 4577 Sculley, personal correspondence, 2007 1270
