THE SPORT OF ROWING According to his 2001 obituaries in London’s The Times, The Guardian and The Independent, Mahon was born in Wanganui on the North Island of New Zealand in 1942. His uncle and grandfather had been rowers, and Harry joined the local rowing club at an early age. He studied geography at Victoria University.6569 Journalist Rachell Quarrell: “He played rugby and rowed as a lightweight in school and college.”6570 After graduation, he moved to the small North Island town of Hamilton to teach geography at Melville High School, a state- funded day school. He soon joined the newly founded Waikato Rowing Club. In 1966, Mahon began coaching students from Melville and from nearby Fairfield College. Harry soon transformed Waikato R.C. into “one of the most successful clubs in the country.”6571 British Olympic Champion rower Martin Cross: “He left New Zealand in 1969 for a geography and environmental studies teaching post at Ridley College [in St. Catharines, Ontario], Canada. He was there for five years,”6572 taking a lightweight coxless-four to the 1974 World Champion- ships,6573 after which he returned to New Zealand. The Times of London: “[Mahon] came to national prominence at the World Championships in Amsterdam in 1977 also detect perhaps the hint on of an “r” sound before the “n.” “Harry might be quietly amused today at any difficulty in the pronunciation of his name.” – Mark A. Shuttleworth, South Africa 6569 Obituary, The Guardian, May 24, 2001 6570 Rachel Quarrell, Obituary, The Independent of London, May 25, 2001 6571 Obituary: Harry Mahon - Rowing coach who trained the victorious British VIII at last year’s Olympics in Sydney, The Times of London, May 24, 2001 6572 Cross, p. 47 6573 Mary Stevens, Magic Mahon Harry, Regatta Magazine, May, 2001, p. 15 6574 The Times of London, op. cit. 6575 Brook, personal correspondence, 2008 6576 Quarrell, op. cit. 6577 See Chapter 120. 6578 Popplewell, personal correspondence, 2008 6579 See Chapter 120. when, in a David and Goliath struggle, his unrated coxless-four took on an apparently invincible East German crew and only narrowly missed the Gold Medal.”6574 Tony Brook, bow-seat on the 1982 New Zealand World Champion Eight: “In 1979, his under-23 NZ Colts Eight took shape, and many of this crew rowed in his later World Champion Eights.”6575 Quarrell: “In 1981, Mahon took charge of the New Zealand National Men’s Eight,”6576 this in a country used to improbable success in rowing , thanks to his famous predecessor, Rusty Robertson.6577 New Zealand Men Tony Popplewell, a member of the 1964 New Zealand Eight: “I was the manager for the NZ team when Harry came on stream as coach of the very successful Colts eights in 1979 and 1980, and then after the eight that year failed to qualify for the final at the World Championships in Munich in 1981, Harry was moved up to Coaching Coordinator. “A big learning experience for Harry and for the crew.”6578 Dudley Storey:6579 “I had been thrown in the deep end in ‘82 as team manager, and I didn’t know Harry very well at all. The year before, for the first time in sixteen years New Zealand had not made the A final in the men’s eights, and I was mouthing off, saying stuff like, ‘All the work that we did in the ‘60s, you guys have stuffed it all up,’ that sort of thing, and I was able to give a lot of this to Harry, and he listened to a fair bit of it and very seldom did he ever argue with anything I had to say. 1822
