THE SPORT OF ROWING Dan Lyons runs a management training and team-building business as he coaches on Boathouse Row in Philadelphia. Dan Topolski eventually returned to a limited role advising Oxford Boat Race crews. His thoughts on 1987: “The result of it all was an extraordinary race. What that crew achieved was the stuff of fantasy.”7605 Black and white make for terrific storytelling and exciting films, but the real world is painted in shades of gray. Eliminating the good guys versus bad guys aspect of this tale leaves only a sad story of passionate people talking and not listening, sincere true believers desperately holding fast to their world views. Again I think of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two sides, both equally passionate, both equally convinced that they are in the right. At times true believers can achieve truly historic heights, be truly great leaders, but they can also be incapable of any real empathy, accommodation or meaningful compromise, and in the real world the structure that was the instrument of their success can quickly become the instrument of their downfall . . . like Churchill, Patton and MacArthur. Hopefully, the perfect storm of opposing ardent, sincere, single-minded people and situations that came together in the 1987 Oxford Mutiny will never happen again. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an admirer of everyone involved with the Oxford Mutiny. Seriously. As have many members of the international community of rowing, I have asked myself many times what I might have done had I been in the shoes of one or another of them on both sides. I still don’t have a good answer. Dan Topolski graciously took time to meet with me and answer my questions at 7605 Qtd. by Baker, op. cit. Henley in 2008. I met with Mike Spracklen in 2005, and he has been very generous with his time in the years since. I first met Hugh Matheson nearly forty years ago. Chris Clark has encouraged my efforts, though he has chosen not to contribute directly. Chris Huntington and Tony Ward have generously contributed and wished me well at this daunting task of making sense of a painful past. I met Jon Fish a long time ago, but he wouldn’t remember it. And I am honored to call Chris Dodd and Dan Lyons my friends. Steve Redgrave After our detour into the Oxford Mutiny, let us return to this chapter’s topic – the tension between Modern Orthodox and Classical Rowing Technique in Great Britain. Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave CBE DL is widely acknowledged today as the most accomplished oarsman in Olympic history, five Gold Medals in five consecutive Olympics, a superbly gifted athlete and a rower of unparalleled distinction and unparalleled respect in his native Great Britain. Tim Foster, a 2000 quadrennial teammate:7606 “For a sports star in the same pantheon as [Mark] Spitz and [Carl] Lewis, he is extraordinarily ordinary, uncomplicated yet unfathomable, a beguiling mix of self-confidence and modesty, a true sporting hero who is unsentimental about his sport, yet consumed by it.”7607 Redgrave’s career as an athlete has been covered in Chapters 130 and 136. In 1992, Redgrave published a comprehensive description of the sport in Steven Redgrave’s Complete Book of 7606 See Chapter 136. 7607 Ross, p. 54 2110
