THE SPORT OF ROWING Rosenberg Returns After sacking Tibor Machán with the Olympic Trials just a year away, young Jack Kelly was seriously running out of coaching options. Boyce Budd: “Allen Rosenberg, the little Vesper coxswain from 1958 who had a degree in pharmacy and went to law school, wasn’t even Plan B or Plan C. He was Plan D!”4976 Rosenberg: “I was working in Indiana and fortuitously wrote to Kelly, telling him I wanted to return to Philadelphia. “When I arrived at Vesper after the Pan American Games in 1963, my contact with Tibor was brief, and I do believe that he was weary of me since I basically replaced him. I moved into what had been Tibor’s quarters next to the trophy room. He certainly was not happy.”4977 Madden: “I recall a heated argument on the concrete outside the boat bays at Vesper. Tibor was ranting that he was an athlete, and the notion of being replaced by a coxswain was crazy! It was a long time ago . . . might be a bit fuzzy, but I do recall the yelling.”4978 Rosenberg: “Actually, David Wilmer- ding substituted for me on the coaching until I arrived.”4979 Lehman: “Wilmerding kept to Tibor’s approach except for the spread-knee, which we were glad to drop. Dave deserves much credit in making the transition to Al Rosenberg a smooth one.”4980 Rosenberg: “The Italian boats were in the boathouse, and in particular the John B. Kelly, which was the shell in which we would win the Olympic Trials in New York. 4976 Budd, personal conversation, 2010 4977 Rosenberg, personal correspondence, 2009 4978 Madden, op. cit. 4979 Rosenberg, op. cit. 4980 Lehman, op. cit. It was a magnificent hull, and that was to Tibor’s specifications. It was huge, and when rowed properly fairly skimmed the water, albeit with some porpoising. As I remember, it was sectional and deep.”4981 Dietrich Rose Tibor’s presence at Vesper had encouraged other Europeans to come to Philadelphia, among them Bob Zimonyi, a fellow Hungarian and coxswain with Olympic experience who had defected after the 1956 Olympics. New novice coach Allen Rosenberg also had other help in digesting the new European approaches to technique, training and selection. Already at Vesper was Dietrich Rose, a German who had grown up in Berlin and moved to Ratzeburg to train under Karl Adam.4982 In the summer of 1961, the Ratzeburg crew was at a regatta in Potsdam in the German Democratic Republic. Rose: “We were racing in the final to make the European selection Championship team when we heard tanks rolling during the night on the road outside the barracks where we were housed. “The next morning, there were East German soldiers with machine guns in the starting stake boats, and they told us – incorrectly, as it turned out – that we would not be able to return home due to the new regulations and the ‘Wall,’ which had been built overnight. “We lost the race, and for the first time in my life I cried.”4983 In April, 1963, when Dietrich failed to make the Ratzeburg first eight, he moved to Philadelphia to join Vesper Boat Club at Jack Kelly’s invitation. 4981 Rosenberg, op. cit. 4982 See Chapter 92. 4983 Rose, qtd. by Stowe, p. 36 1386
