THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING mark, Hoffer told us we were ahead. ‘Not quite,’ I thought, but it was a very close pack. “I caught a flash of light to our starboard, but it was too far in front to be a crew. I looked. It was Ratzeburg! Those rats! How could they get out there a length in front? “Suddenly East Germany made a move. They had dropped about three-quarters of a length behind us somewhere in the first 1,000, and now they wanted back. “‘Power 20,’ I heard Hoffman order. A power 20 it was. We held the East Germans off, and they did not challenge again. “Then we were at the 500-to-go mark, and everything was taking on finality. The Russian coxswain went crazy. I was wrenched out of my concentration by his incredible yelling. The Russians were sprinting. They, too, were trying to catch us. “Hoffer called. It was our turn to go up. Mind and body screamed for mercy, but the sprint was upon us. The next thing I remember was looking over at the Russian 7-man as we crossed the line. [Canning was also rowing in the 7-seat.] We took second in a photo finish by .03 seconds. “We had closed on Ratzeburg! The winning margin was only 1.57 seconds.”4657 Sigward, Varsity spare: “Andy Larkin, the 6-man, maintains that the final in Vichy was the best race our generation [at Harvard] ever rowed.”4658 Larkin: “A quarter of the way through the race, there were three seconds first to last. Halfway through the race, there were seven seconds, and we were in last place. Nobody seems to remember this. We passed four crews in the next 500, and at that point we were three seconds behind Ratzeburg, and in the last 500 we closed another second and a half on Ratzeburg, and we were trying to keep the Russians behind us.”4659 After the extraordinary summer of 1967, the Harvard crew entered the Olympic year as seasoned internationals. 1968 Harvard Crew Freshman Coach Ted Washburn: “With few exceptions, the key athletes in all of Harry Parker’s most famous crews of the 1960s started out totally inexperienced. Seven of the eight oarsmen in Harvard’s 1968 Olympic Eight had been dragged down to the boathouse as novices [after having been recruited to campus by other Harvard coaches]. “Art Evans 6’0” 185cm 195lb. 89kg, Curt Canning 6’3” 193cm 201lb. 91kg, and Scott Steketee 6’4” 196cm 214lb. 97kg were high school football stars. Fritz Hobbs 6’3” 193cm 199lb. 90kg was a tennis, football and hockey letterman who also played on Harvard’s national champion squash team. Dave Higgins 6’1” 188cm 194lb. 88kg had won two high school letters each in football, wrestling and track and had firm plans to wrestle for Harvard. Cleve Livingston 6’2” 191cm 180lb. 82kg had lettered in basketball, swimming and skiing in high school and turned out for crew just to get in shape for freshman basketball.”4660 “Collectively, they had won nearly forty varsity high school letters in twelve sports.”4661 Scott Steketee: “Somebody had tried to talk to me about rowing when I arrived at Harvard, but I was going out for freshman football so I didn’t pay any attention. My career ended prematurely a week before the Yale game when I came in from football practice, and I was peeing blood. They put 4657 Canning, op. cit., pp. 72-4 4658 Sigward, p. 49 4659 Larkin, personal conversation, 2008 4660 Washburn, op. cit. 4661 Zang, p. 117 1291
