THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING embarrassing, stopping at the finish and then flying up to the catch, but at race cadence, it didn’t feel all that ‘different.’”4701 Outsiders were often less subtle and less successful in applying their interpretations of Stop & Shop. 1968 Olympic Trials Harvard graduate and noted sports journalist Roger Angell interviewed Parker at the site of the 1968 Olympic Trials for The New Yorker. Angell: “Here in Long Beach, he was on the eve of a regatta that would test the value of two years of nearly unceasing work: his Varsity might become the first Harvard crew ever to be selected as Olympic representatives. He knew that a similarly accomplished and admired crew of his had failed in the 1964 Trials, yet he discussed the coming races without a trace of tension or excitement. “Last summer, almost the same Harvard crew won at the Pan American Games and then came in a disastrous fourth in an international race4702 at St. Catharines, Ontario behind New Zealand, Australia and Ratzeburg. “Later in Philadelphia, it improved its margin while losing again to New Zealand, and traveled to the European Championships in Vichy, where it lost to Ratzeburg but beat everyone else, winning second place over an excellent Russian crew. “‘Last summer is hard to assess,’ Parker went on, ‘but I think the total experience made this crew realize that it was equal to the best of the world. If we go to Mexico, we at least have real hopes of coming out on top. This crew is faster and stronger than our crews of ‘64 and ‘65, and they’re a lot more relaxed off the water. They have more fun.’”4703 Only one member of the 1967 crew, Jake Fiechter, had graduated. The rest returned to train for Mexico in 1968. Meanwhile, Parker’s nemesis, Allen Rosenberg, had left Philadelphia for Upstate New York, but a new rival had arisen to challenge Harvard at the 1968 Trials, Vesper’s next door neighbor on Boathouse Row – the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks to successive groups of champion freshmen recruited and coached by Ted Nash, Joe Burk had a formidable crew that had been getting closer and closer to Harry’s eight as the collegiate season progressed.4704 Angell described the 1968 Harvard crew: “The members of this group were considered exceptional in Cambridge, and not just as athletes but also for their intelligence and maturity. Of the four graduating seniors, two were headed for the Peace Corps, one was planning a career teaching, and the fourth was entering the Harvard Medical School. “None of them, apparently, had wasted any time at the barber’s in the previous months. I counted three separate mustache styles. “Five of the Harvard crewmen [later] circulated a letter among other white athletes on the United States Olympic Team urging support of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, a group of black athletes that may undertake a boycott or some other form of protest at the Games as a means of dramatizing racial inequalities. “This action was discussed by the Harvard crewmen before the Trials, and one of them told me that it was ‘another reason Harvard had to win.’”4705 4703 Roger Angell, 00:00.05, The New Yorker, 4701 S. Brooks, op. cit. 4702 The North American Championships. August 10, 1968, p. 72 4704 See Chapter 95. 4705 Angell, op. cit., p. 75 1305
