THE ERA OF POLARIZATION Gregg won a Bronze Medal in the quads at the 1979 Pan Am Games. Here the plot thickens as we look forward to the 1984 Olympics on Lake Casitas in Southern California: Stone: “In 1977 or ‘78, I received a letter from Joe Bouscaren7010 on the Yale crew. I had never met Joe. Essentially, the letter noted that [Yale Coach] Tony Johnson7011 had told Joe and his teammate, John Biglow, that if I could win in sculling, so could they. I encouraged them both, as well as a number of others, to convert. “I like to think that by example, direct www.boston.com The Rowing Stones: Robbie, Gevvie, Gregg and Lisa Bill Belden Tiff Wood: “In 1980, there was a encouragement, and by organizing the CRASH-B eights, I helped lead a number of sweep oarsmen, including Tiff, Biggie and Suds,7012 to discover the joys of moving boats alone.”7013 Today Gregg is married to the former World-Medalist double sculler Lisa Hansen of Long Beach Rowing Association.7014 He still competes worldwide in masters’ singles competitions, while she coaches crew at the Winsor School in Boston. They have a son, Robbie, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by rowing for Harvard, and a daughter, Gevvie, NCAA Champion for Princeton, stroke of the 2006 World Champion U-23 Eight, and climbing the ranks of American single scullers while attending medical school. 7010 See Chapter 140. 7011 See Chapter 110. 7012 Andy Sudduth, Harvard ‘86, would win Silver in the singles at the 1985 World Championships. See Chapter 142. 7013 Stone, op. cit. 7014 See Chapter 126. realization that nobody was going to do particularly well in the singles,7015 so everybody starting in the fall of ‘79 was focused on the team boats, and we had Camp Quad get-togethers in October and November. Everyone was there.”7016 With many U.S. heavyweight scullers pointing toward other events, the way was left open at the 1980 Olympic Singles Trials for Larry Klecatsky’s great rival, 1974 and 1979 World Lightweight Singles Champion Bill Belden, who beginning in high school in the late 1960s had rowed for several clubs and for LaSalle College along Boathouse Row in Philadelphia. As his opponents discovered when he won the 1980 Heavyweight Olympic Singles Trials, Belden was a formidable competitor. He and Klecatsky had had epic battles in the lightweight singles at the U.S. Nationals each year during the ‘70s. 7015 This was the era of Karppinen and Kolbe. See Chapter 125. 7016 Wood, personal conversation, 2009 1963
