THE SPORT OF ROWING 140. The Back-Story Behind The Amateurs Tiff Wood – Joe Bouscaren – Charlie Altekruse – Bill Purdy – Brad Lewis 1982 Post Mortem The New York Times: “John Biglow of Bellevue, Wash., a former stroke for the Yale Varsity eight, won a Bronze Medal in the single sculls event at the World Rowing Championships, which concluded yesterday at Lucerne, Switzerland. “After a slow beginning in the first 500 meters of the 2,000-meter course, Biglow finished third behind Rüdiger Reiche of East Germany and Vasily Yakusha of the Soviet Union”7107 Biglow: “I was 1.41 seconds behind Reiche! What a great race . . . I thought! “Harry Parker’s reaction was this: ‘You were so close. Why couldn’t you win? It must be because you don’t want it enough.’ “Those weren’t his exact words, but when we finally got back to Boston maybe a month later, he said, ‘Well, we have to have a talk . . . ‘ and that’s basically what he said.”7108 The Amateurs, the best-selling book which David Halberstam would eventually write about the American scullers preparing for the 1984 Olympics, is mostly a tragic tale. Perhaps the real back-story began with that fateful conversation between John Biglow and Harry Parker in the fall of 1982. 7107 Biglow Captures Rowing Bronze, The New York Times, August 30, 1982 7108 Biglow, personal conversation, 2008 Biglow: “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Well, I have great respect for Harry. He’s made winning crews for decades now, and he’s made me a fast sculler, and here he is telling me I didn’t want it enough . . . ‘ “Now that I look back on it, I remember that I was having back trouble. I was rowing with a herniated disc, and he took me to a place where I believed that I hadn’t wanted it enough and I had to try harder! No matter what, I had to push myself harder!”7109 Harry wasn’t just speaking to Biglow. He was turning the heat up all over. Altekruse: “In the fall of 1983, I had just begun graduate school at Tuft’s Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and was training for 1984. We had had a pretty unsatisfying quad finish at Duisburg a few months earlier, not making the final.7110 Harry pulled me aside and basically said I wasn’t being serious enough about the rowing. I challenged him, but I would end up postponing my next school semester to train in Switzerland.”7111 1983 Biglow: “Tiff Wood and I had an interesting rivalry at the Head of the 7109 Ibid. 7110 to be discussed later in this chapter. 7111 Altekruse, personal correspondence, 2009 1988
