THE SPORT OF ROWING Monty Python’ Flying Circus Clark: “All the credit should be given to Kelly for putting that boat together. Kel was a lot of things, but the boat was his brain child.”4999 Budd: “Absolutely agree. He was the master puppeteer, and the credit for recruiting many of the players and mounting an eight from Vesper goes to him.”5000 It really was an extraordinary group of men: two undergraduates from LaSalle College in Philadelphia, Cwiklinski and Foley, three Ivy League grads, Budd and Clark from Yale and Stowe from Cornell, three club rowers, Knecht and the Amlong brothers, all steered by Zimonyi, a Hungarian refugee. Most were either veterans or active duty military. Lehman: “I lived at Vesper and trained with these guys through the whole period of 1963 and 1964. As a sculler, I was friends with all of them but never competing with them, except ad hoc in their daily small-boat workouts. “It was an unforgettable experience to have a daily ringside seat to what was a kind of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Every day was some new drama or comedy. It wasn’t until I got to my first Navy squadron that I ever saw anything like those ten ultra- Type-A characters. What a fascinating group of individuals, every one very different and each in his own way a supreme egotist. command authority, but every one of the Vesper guys felt command authority.”5001 “Naval aviators were under rigorous they should be the The Amlong Brothers Rosenberg: “Actually, the boat movers were Tom and Joe Amlong. In races between Budd and Clark and these guys in coxed-pairs, the Amlongs would win every time. It was the decision of the Amlongs to forego the coxed-pair that was the most decisive event that made the eight complete.”5002 Clark: “Al said Budd and I never beat the Amlongs in a pair. Well, I remember racing them twice, both times in coxed-pairs (we never would have beaten them in a pair- without). In the first race, they came from a few lengths down to catch us (maybe) at the finish, although Al pronounced us the winners – to the Amlongs’ vituperative disgust. In the second, we killed them in the middle 1,000, and they never mounted a sprint, although they had some reason why they hadn’t really ‘lost.’ “Having said that, they were tough, vicious buggers with an oar in their hands and added lengths to our speed when they got in the boat.”5003 Budd: “I can only add that I stroked that pair, and at no time did the Amlongs get ahead of us. The first race was also our first race in a pair-with, and it was probably very close to a dead tie. In the second race one or two weeks later, we won by a good margin, but as Em says, the Amlongs had an elaborate excuse worked out before we reached the dock. “And yes, they would have killed us in a straight-pair. Without the Amlongs, there would have been no Olympics for Vesper that year. “All that small-boat training and racing, especially the intrasquad racing, was some of the most passionate rowing I have even done. I can’t remember ever wanting to beat another boat as much as wanting to whup 4999 Clark, personal correspondence, 2010 5000 Budd, personal correspondence, 2010 5001 Lehman, op. cit. 5002 Rosenberg, op. cit. 5003 Clark, op. cit. 1390