THE SPORT OF ROWING Gluckman: “I was not initially part of the mutiny. I wasn’t quite sure about it. I was still loyal to the National Team and loyal to Al, but I was getting nervous in my thirtieth year and in my last weeks of rowing that things would fall apart, and ultimately they did. “The next morning Al calls everybody together and says, ‘Well, Ken and Michael and Tim have left, and I need to decide on another starboard to go,’ and he interviewed myself and [6’5” 195cm 196lb. 89kg] Chip Lubsen separately. “I remember this clearly. He pulled me over to the side at the old Dartmouth boathouse against the hill where they keep singles now. In this very narrow place, his back was against the hill, and I was leaning against the boathouse, and he asked me, ‘If you leave the Camp, would you join those guys?’ “I said, ‘What difference does it make, Al?’ “‘I just want to know if you’re with them or you’re with me.’ “I said, ‘Well, if you put it that way, if I get cut today, we have about two weeks, and all the boats at all the other boat clubs are filled. No one is going to pick me up. I will probably go and join those guys.’ “That’s what I said. I don’t know what Chip said to him. “Before practice that morning, Al said to me, ‘Larry, you’ll start in the launch first,’ and we warmed up and did a 500 with Lubsen and then did another 500 with me. Then we came in, he announced that Chip would be in the eight and that I had to clear out by noon. “I called the boys and said, ‘I’m with you.’ “We then contacted the NAAO and asked to use a camp boat, promising to row in off hours so that we’d never see the other athletes. Initially, they said yes, but in two days, Jack Frailey came up from Boston and told us that we could no longer use the boat, and he suggested that we leave Hanover. “That’s when we called Tony Johnson at Yale. “Tony was caught in a real dilemma. He said, ‘I’ll let you use a boat, but because you left Al, don’t count on me coaching.’ “He was a loyal follower of Al, and it was just an ugly, ugly thing. “At the Trials, we and Penn Elite Center both kind of squeezed early off the start and got a little bit of a lead on the field, but it got called back because a third boat had also jumped, and they were the one they assigned the penalty to. When we did it again, it wasn’t quite as good. We raced hard, but we came up half a length short, and that was that. “Close racing. The Penn boat was better that day. They were a good, young boat, and they rowed great. Bingo! End of season.”5278 Vespoli: “I wind up losing the Olympic Trials in the coxed-four, and that ended my competitive international career. So we had a high moment [in 1974] and then it went away, and I learned some pretty good lessons that have stuck with me.”5279 Shealy: “To make matters worse, I contracted mononucleosis just a few weeks before the Games and wasn’t anywhere near par. In hindsight, I probably should have relinquished my seat, but instead I tried gamely to produce and hammered it out while our crew failed to make the Olympic final for the first time in history. “Bad times.”5280 Rosenberg: “Shealy contracted mono the day we broke camp at Hanover. He was so weak he was of no value on the water, 5278 Gluckman, personal conversation, 2007 5279 Jeff Moag, The Rowing News Q&A: Mike Vespoli, Rowing News, December 2099, p. 49 5280 Shealy, personal correspondence, 2005 1454
