THE SPORT OF ROWING Second, Allen was forced into an ambitious travel schedule, relying on the kindness of various hosts: two weeks in Tampa, Florida in January followed by the month of April rowing out of Conibear Shellhouse in Seattle, two weeks in May rowing out of the Wisconsin boathouse in Madison, ending the odyssey at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire until it was time to go to Montréal. Rosenberg: “We traveled because we had no equipment to use! We had no place to sleep. Unlike ‘74, when we had great training table at Princeton, we ate training meals from vending machines. We slept cheek by jowl in the attic of the old gymnasium at Dartmouth. “The whole effort was horribly underfunded with no spares in camp before the Games began, no manager, no assistant coaches, no boatman, no launch assistant, no other set of eyes as we went along. You don’t go to war or to a World Championship without quartermaster and logistical support. “Yet we were forced to do precisely that. “The decline in performance was due as much to nonsupport and neglect as it was to changes in the crew. At times I was exhausted with eroding group cohesiveness and intrusions. “What that also meant was that I was away from my family of six children and a demanding wife who eventually divorced me.”5268 Cashin: “In 1976, the bottom fell out. Allen was having personal and family problems, and in the best of times, he had never been a person who could run a camp by himself. “When Allen had to make personnel decisions in ‘76, he couldn’t. He always thought the world was against him. We were sitting on a bench at some boathouse, and a bird dropping hit him on the knee. He 5268 Rosenberg, personal correspondence, 2007 looked up, sighed, and said with a hang-dog look, ‘For some, the birds sing.’ “You came to realize that you couldn’t take anything at face value. He was making it up as he went along. He’d call out stroke ratings – 33, 33½, 33 – and afterward we’d see he didn’t have a watch, and we knew we were closer to 35-36. “He was great when things fell into place and hopeless when they didn’t. He had a magic feel about him when things were going well, but it was brittle, witness what happened in 1976. “Al’s a very gentle and likeable man, and you don’t get the sense that he’s got much meanness at all in him. Between 1974 and 1976, I saw the best and worst of Allen Rosenberg.”5269 Mickelson: “Al would not be there for days, sometimes more than a week at a time, and then he’d show up, and he’d be exhausted. “With the lack of somebody to run practices, sometimes we had to run our own workouts, and how can you be objective about your own workout?”5270 Rosenberg: “I am infuriated that Mickelson would write that I missed huge chunks of time in camp. I do not apologize for my efforts at any time.”5271 Larry Gluckman, 6’1” 185cm 200lb. 91kg: “After the seat racing in Seattle, everyone pretty much knew where they stood, and the eight was pretty well defined. There were twelve people left, and the intention had always been to boat an eight and send a coxed-four to the Trials. “We went out and rowed as an eight for a few days and set the course record in Seattle on Opening Day. We left soon after that and went to Madison. “The guys in the eight were thinking, ‘Wow! We’ve got something here,’ and the 5269 Cashin, op. cit. 5270 Mickelson, personal correspondence, 2005 5271 Rosenberg, op. cit. 1452
