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8. 1962 Sprints: Shirts Aplenty... |
After the race, the Cornell, Navy and MIT coaches huddled,
reaching agreement on what to do about the all-important racing
shirts. In a normal championship race, the victors would receive
nine shirts from each of the crews they defeated, 81 shirts in
all, including their own. The coaches decided that each team
would receive three shirts from each Sprints squad, including
shirts from the co-victors. In other words, we would not only be
awarded 3 Harvard shirts, 3 Yale shirts, etc., we would receive 3
shirts from Cornell and Navy as well.
On the bus trip home we voted to award the Harvard shirts to our
three Seniors, Jerry Manning (Capt.), Charles Bruggemann and
George Zimmerman. They had worked toward this for four
years, finally achieving their goal in the last race of
their collegiate careers.
The Sprints were followed immediately by MIT's Reading Period, a
preparation time for final exams, and then by the exams
themselves. Because of this grueling schedule after Sprints, we
had posed for the annual crew photograph the week
before:
Soon after the Sprints, we began to receive encouragement that
MIT might award us with a trip to the Henley Royal Regatta, as
they had with MIT's fine crews from 1954 and 1955. These rumors
were all but confirmed when Gary asked us to convene at the
boathouse. Our collection of rowing shirts had arrived and there
was "other news to announce." He confirmed the Henley trip to us
that afternoon.
By this time Gary must have already learned that our bowman,
Steve Aldrich (far right in the picture above), would not be able
to take the early summer off to go to England. Normally, two
spare oarsmen would be chosen but, under these circumstances,
Gary had invited three oarsmen from the Junior Varsity to make the trip, selecting
Roger Rowe '62, Tom Alexander '62 and Rick Metzinger '63.
Another fierce competition was underway, this time for the bow
seat. Gary rotated the three in and out, right up until a week
before we departed for England, eventually selecting Roger Rowe
for the Varsity Eight. I am mentioning this at this time only
because on the day we met at the boathouse, it was Rick
Metzinger's rotation. That's Rick, back row, right, in the
picture below. Tom Alexander and Roger Rowe are to my left and
right in the front row in this picture, one of my most prized
photographs. The eleven of us are grinning ear to ear, decked out
in our new collection of rowing shirts:
And a similar one that includes our most valuable player,
Gary Zwart:
The entire 1962 squad—varsity, junior varsity, third boat
and freshmen—met just one more time that year. The event
was the annual rowing banquet when letter sweaters and other
awards are presented and leadership is established for the
following season. That evening the crew elected me Captain for
the 1963 season. It was the proudest moment in my young life.
Come to think of it, forty-five years later, it still is.
Footnote: Rick Metzinger and Tom Alexander were surely
disappointed that they hadn't been selected for the bow seat.
However, they developed into outstanding spares. Henley stages an
unofficial competition, a Spare Pair race in the last days before
the Regatta. Rick and Tom won this tournament going away, beating
the heavyweight spares from the University of Pennsylvania along
the way. After Henley, we lost senior Tom Alexander to
graduation, but junior Rick Metzinger was on his way toward
becoming one of the strongest oarsmen in our 1963 Varsity Eight.
Here they are, winning the Spare Pair with their competitor not
even in sight:
