THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING guys who weren’t going to make the eight still had to go to the Coxed-Fours Trials to qualify for Montréal, so there was this nervousness going on with those guys saying, ‘Okay, the eight is safe, but if we keep on with this, we’re going to be sitting ducks for all the guys who went to Vesper or Potomac or Penn Elite Center a long time ago and were busy training in their boats. The longer we stay out and mess around here, the less prepared we’ll be.’ “All of a sudden, the exact same seat races came up, and the guys went to Al and said, ‘We’ve already done this. Let’s move on. We’re tired of racing against ourselves. Let’s start putting crews together that are going to compete against the other people.’ “But we didn’t go back in the eight when we got to Madison. We stayed in fours. “Two weeks after that, we went to Hanover, and then we had the Memorial Day Massacre.”5272 The Mutiny Even decades later, the subject of the 1976 mutiny elicits sadness and hard feelings in equal measure. Gluckman: “It started with a very innocent request by Al, but it tipped the scale. He wanted our birth dates to check biorhythms. He wanted to know who was going to be in the right phase during the week of the regatta, and I think that just about put Vespoli and Mickelson over the edge.”5273 Essentially, what happened was that by Memorial Day, Ken Brown, Tim Mickelson and Mike Vespoli had concluded that the selection process was stalled, the camp was going nowhere, and they wanted to explore the possibility of rowing a four. They made their intentions 5272 Gluckman, op. cit. 5273 Gluckman, personal correspondence, 2007 known to others, looking for a fourth man to fill their boat. Rosenberg sensed what was in the wind. He immediately called a team meeting. Ken Brown was the only “conspirator” present. The others were on the telephone. Coxswain candidate Bob Jaugstetter: “Brown was backed into a corner. Unwilling to speak for the others, he finally had to answer what he considered a direct challenge. Speaking for himself, he outlined some of the major reasons for his dissatisfaction, especially that he had lost confidence in the handling and direction of the camp. “Rosenberg’s answer was quick and unequivocal. Anyone who had lost confidence in him was no longer welcome to participate in the camp for the eight.”5274 That was that. The three had to leave. Mike Vespoli: “The idea was to get all the oarsmen together and see what we could do about the situation in general. It was pushed to a confrontation too soon, while most people didn’t yet know what was really going on. Al overreacted and made it impossible for us to stay in the group.”5275 Mickelson: “Those of us who ended up leaving didn’t leave voluntarily. We were actually on the phone with Tony Johnson trying to get Al some help when Al called a team meeting and we weren’t there. “We weren’t there. We weren’t on the team any more . . . but that’s all water over the dam now.”5276 Rosenberg: “I do not place any credence at all in sour-grapes comments of Tim Mickelson, an insurrectionist, albeit a superb rower, who gave me every reason to dismiss him from the team.”5277 5274 Bob Jaugstetter, A Review of the 1976 Olympic Men’s Rowing Effort, The Oarsman, November/December 1976, p. 44 5275 Qtd. by Jaugstetter, op. cit. 5276 Mickelson, op. cit. 5277 Rosenberg, op. cit. 1453
