THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING Allen’s 1974 crew also accomplished an extraordinary thing. By the 1970s, world rowing was completely dominated by the German Democratic Republic,5145 indeed far more than it had been by Karl Adam. Between 1969 and the 1980 Olympics, the GDR Men’s Eight was beaten only three times in world competition, twice by an extraordinary New Zealand squad in 1971 and 1972,5146 and once by the U.S. in Lucerne in 1974. The Oarsman: “[That year,] after an elimination heat described by Thomi Keller as ‘the greatest eights race I’ve ever seen,’ Mike Vespoli, number 4, in great exultation exclaimed, ‘After all these years, for the first time I’ve beaten the East Germans!’ “MIT sophomore John Everett, number 3, having just finished his first international race, quietly replied, ‘I’ve never lost to them.’”5147 1973 However, the story of this 1974 crew actually began in Moscow in 1973, when the U.S. Camp Eight was coached by Steve Gladstone, then Lightweight Varsity Coach at Harvard University.5148 Larry Gluckman, 2-seat: “I think that we were a reasonably fast crew. There were three Northeastern guys in the boat: me, Bill Miller and Calvin Coffey. And then Al Shealy [Harvard] and Mike Vespoli [Georgetown grad, Vesper] and Hugh Stevenson [Penn, Vesper] and Ken Brown [Cornell] and Timmy Mickelson [Wisconsin] and Paul Hoffman [Harvard saying he wanted them to find themselves.” – personal correspondence, 2007 5145 See Chapter 119. 5146 See Chapter 120. 5147 Lucerne Odyssey Oddities, The Oarsman, November/December 1974 5148 See Chapter 105. grad] as coxswain. They were great guys, and we seemed to get along. “Shealy5149 was at Shealy’s very best in both his stroking and his leadership and his off-the-water humor. His quips and jokes covered a wide range of people and actions, but when it came to practice or racing, he was always on task and demanding of himself and the crew. “It was a very interesting period, and Gladstone was young! There wasn’t much age difference between the oldest guys, and I was one of the oldest at twenty-seven, and Steve at thirty-one.”5150 Stroke-seat Al Shealy: “Rowing for Steve Gladstone was an opportunity to learn first-hand the vicissitudes that can frustrate the melding of different coaching and rowing techniques, as well as the problems of assimilating off-the-wall personalities. “Steve’s famous line, ‘I hate to see a good crew paddle,’ proved to be the send-up for a wacky but ultimately disappointing summer. We were never allowed to paddle away from the dock or rest easy after a twenty-mile row. We always had to be at least at quarter pressure. As a wet-behind- the-ears nineteen-year-old, I was mainly amused by this, but it was the more wizened vets like Mike Vespoli who continually cut us up with their derisive take-offs of this command. “We never came together as a cohesive unit, and it proved to be disastrous in the final in Moscow, when Thomi Keller and the big wigs at FISA decided to hold the races in a 20-knot crosswind. Every final was won by a crew in the leeward lanes, whereas we were caught out in the fiercest of windborne waves and fell apart under the stress and unfairness of it all.5151 Gluckman: “We shared a changing room with the New Zealand Pair [Noell 5149 See Chapter 104. 5150 Gluckman, personal conversation, 2007 5151 Shealy, personal correspondence, 2005 1425