THE SPORT OF ROWING was planning on rowing in a couple of races at the July 4th Regatta, so my wife, Linda, and I got up early, bundled up the rowing gear and got a half a block when a drunk driver ran a red light and smashed into the front of our car. One minute we were pointing North on 38th Street, and in an instant, we were pointing West on Chestnut. The force of the impact landed Linda in my lap. “A police car arrive in minutes, got the car pushed out of the intersection, and we were taken to the hospital to be checked out. The whole process took a couple of hours, and I missed one of the races for which I was scheduled. I did row in a four-with, but by then I had stiffened up from the accident, and we did not do well. My thoughts were that this was the end of my summer and my Olympic dreams. “The next Monday, I met with Mike Staines, a Cornell alumnus who had won the IRA in ‘71. He was taller than I was and bigger overall. We decided to try competing as a pair under the auspices of College Boat Club. He would stroke, I would bow, and Aaron Herman, a Penn sophomore, would be our coxswain. Ted would be our coach, and we would go for both the pair-without and pair-with at the Trials. “It was a turning point, for the better.”5952 Technique Mike Staines: “For my Freshman Coach at Cornell I had Clayton Chapman,5953 and I had Stork Sanford5954 and later Todd Jesdale as Varsity Coaches. “I can remember this fantastic Penn boat my freshman year with Rick Crooker and Luther Jones and all these huge guys in 5952 Jones, op. cit. 5953 See Chapter 70. 5954 Ibid. it.5955 They just killed everybody! Then when I heard that Jones and Crooker were both going to the Olympics as freshmen, I wondered how we would ever beat them. “But we did . . . sort of. We won the IRA as seniors, but Luther and Rick were no longer in the Penn boat. Both had moved on. “If you wanted to row 31 down the course for three miles, there was no better coach than Stork Sanford. Jesdale was in touch with more modern trends in rowing,5956 and under him we rowed higher and accelerated our slides just a bit on the recovery, more than we did with Stork, but certainly nothing like Harvard was doing at the time. “We didn’t row half the recovery with the blades square. We would square up late, get a quick catch and just tick the boat along, light and quick.”5957 Jones: “As for me, I didn’t think much about rowing technique. I just rowed. I didn’t have any trouble adjusting to Mike. What he describes for technique sounds pretty good to me.”5958 ‘72 Nationals Staines: “First we had to row in the U.S. Nationals, and clearly the team to beat was the Stanford Pair of Hough and Lyon with Kent Mitchell as their coach and coxswain.”5959 Larry Hough and his previous partner, Tony Johnson, had dominated the coxless- pairs for several years, winning the ‘67 European Championship and Pan American Games, getting Silver in the ‘68 Olympics 5955 See Chapter 95. 5956 See Chapter 105. 5957 Staines, personal conversation, 2007 5958 Jones, op. cit. 5959 Staines, op. cit. 1672
