THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING the camp wasn’t as competitive. We had more people cutting themselves, saying, ‘Hey, the boat is set. I’m not going to bother sticking around when I can jump into a small boat.’ “Unfortunately, we also got some guys coming back who hadn’t done their homework, and that’s where Al needed a Ted Nash to run the seat races and flush out the guys who shouldn’t have been there. “Mike Teti has learned this with the current [2005] National Team. When you’ve got really talented guys and lots of them, you’ve got to keep challenging them and make sure you’ve got the cream still rising to the top. “I don’t think we had that in ‘75 or in ‘76. 1975 Technique Mickelson: “As for technique, Shealy wasn’t a classical, ‘hammer it at the catch’ guy, but with the Rosenberg Stroke, you’ve got to row it high. “We rowed a bit higher in ‘74 than we had for Harry in ‘72, when it was a different type of stroke, probably a little steeper acceleration curve at the catch with Harry. “With Allen, when you get it up to like 37 and above, it all falls into place. You don’t have to speed the boat up as much at the catch. You’re just ticking it along, and that’s what made it really feel effortless even though we were flying. It didn’t feel as if you had to put as much effort into it. The higher you did it, the faster you went, and the easier it became. “But if the boat slows down, boy it gets heavy fast! You start forcing the catch, pounding it, shooting your tail, and then it gets really heavy and sloppy at the finish. “It comes apart, and that’s what happened in ‘75. The really heavy catch doesn’t buy you anything. You start ding- donging too much.”5252 A respected American coach remembers those years of decline with sadness for Allen and for his athletes. “Our observation was that he overdid the sequential aspect. The technique became the end instead of the means to an end. He lost it. “Initially they were moving the boat, but then the connection was lost, and it stopped working.”5253 Buzz Congram, former Northeastern coach: “I looked askance at the extreme nature of what Rosenberg was coaching, and I thought it was gradually becoming more extreme.”5254 The differences are extremely subtle and very hard to detect from the film frame sequences in this book, but they are indeed related to Rosenberg’s preferred sequentiality. In 1975, the legs were being aggressively pushed flat at the 60% point of the stroke. In 1964 and 1974, it had been closer to 90%. This is a huge difference but hard to detect until it is pointed out. In addition, Rosenberg had reduced the layback from 25° to 15°, so Shealy was no longer able to swing his back into the finish. With stronger legs and reduced layback, the rhythm of the boat naturally devolved toward the technique rowed by Hugh Stevenson in 1974: front-half emphasis, now completely dominated by legs with a force discontinuity before the second half. At full speed, films clearly show a mutant Kernschlag double-stroke, a two-part pullthrough, a Philadelphia dipsy-doodle. The disconnect came when the back swing was inadequate to bridge the gap between the ever stronger initial leg drive and the time when the arms could begin to break. 5252 Mickelson, op. cit. 5253 personal conversation, 2005 5254 Congram, personal conversation, 2004 1449
