THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING were accelerating up the slide, the next instant the pullthrough had already begun. From the entry to the release, force application was consistent and relentless. The boat smoothly accelerated all the way until the oars left the water, and the harder we pulled, the better the boat felt. I was immediately reminded of the pullthrough of the 1956 Yale Olympic crew, which I had also been able to experience first-hand two years earlier. As radical as the Stop & Shop recovery was perceived to be in its time, by 1968 the pullthrough of the Harvard crew was firmly in the center of the American collegiate mainstream Schub- schlag tradition that had started with Ellis Ward4679 and Charles Courtney.4680 Why had Harvard evolved from Kernschlag to Schubschlag? Harry credits his athletes. Steve Brooks: “I’ve had three sons who rowed for Harry, so I have been watching Harvard boats with great interest over the years, and year-to-year I get the impression that the boats were changing. I think that Harry tends to find the most competitive, able people, put them in a boat, make sure that they can row more-or-less together, row a lot of steady state, and then things kind of evolve into the best kind of stroke sequence that works for them.’”4681 Parker: “The really good oarsmen figure out how to make the boat go no matter how they are coached. They have a feel for it, and it happens. “More often than not, the coaches learn from them, rather than vice versa.”4682 Seat Racing Harry’s wife, 1984 Olympian Kathy Keeler:4683 “The best thing he ever said to 4679 See Chapters 36 and 37. 4680 See Chapter 31 ff. 4681 S. Brooks, op. cit. 4682 Parker, op. cit., 2004 me was that a good coach lets athletes be as good as they can be and doesn’t mess them up.”4684 This concept is not a new one. Nineteenth Century English Orthodox “oracle” Edmond Warre: “A real stroke, like a poet, ‘nascitur non fit.’4685”4686 The challenge for Harry was in how to reconcile his desire not to let his responsibilities as teacher interfere with his athletes’ natural tendencies. seat racing, which tests an oarsman’s ability to move boats without intervention of the coach. The guys who instinctively knew or could figure out how to win seat races rose to the top and set the tone for the others, no matter what technique the coach might think he was coaching. As a selection technique, seat racing was not new. Historian Tom Mendenhall credited Yale Coach Ed Leader with its invention in the 1920s, 4687 but if so, the practice had been long forgotten by the 1960s. Parker: “We used one-on-one seat racing at Harvard starting with my very first year of coaching the freshmen, in eights up through 1963, but also in fours starting in 1964. We also used it prior to the Olympic Trials in fours in 1964.”4688 The concept matched Harry’s enormous respect for the inherent talent of great natural rowers to his desire not to interfere with its free expression. Parker: “You can teach boat moving. That’s what I do for a living, but some are 4683 See Chapter 148. 4684 Qtd. by Ed Winchester, Deconstructing Harry, Rowing News, December, 2004, p. 49 4685 ‘is born, not made.’ 4686 Warre, p. 42 4687 See Chapter 52 4688 Parker, op. cit., 2006 Part of the answer for Harry became the 1301
