5. The Biglin Bowl
Except for the Sprints, the Biglin Bowl was always our most important and, most certainly, our most anticipated race. The Bowl was awarded annually to the winner of the Lightweight Varsity race between Harvard, Dartmouth and MIT, a race that MIT had not won since the mid-1950s. Harvard (the school with the freshly painted dock) was our cross-town rival, and the contrast between the two colleges and their students could not have been greater. I’m sure that a Harvard crew’s greatest nightmare was the specter of losing to MIT.
In a typical year, Dartmouth was more in our league in terms of rowing; that is, in some years we would finish second to Harvard in the Biglin Bowl, and in other years Dartmouth would. No matter how far ahead of us was Harvard, we always seemed to have a competitive race with Dartmouth. Our coach Gary Zwart was a Dartmouth graduate who always looked forward to return trips to his alma mater, and I expect that he got a great deal of satisfaction whenever his Tech crews beat Dartmouth. But 1963 could not be described as typical year. We spent our waking hours with but one goal in mind, that of beating the Harvard Lightweights.
In April 1963 it was Dartmouth’s turn to host the Biglin Bowl on their home course in Hanover, NH. The following page may be a bit difficult to read because the Dartmouth Heavyweights were hosting a dual meet with Syracuse that same afternoon. Here is the schedule for a full afternoon of crew racing:
We had lost the Biglin Bowl to Harvard in 1962 and although we had beaten them soundly at the end of the season in the 1962 Sprints, Harvard’s fourth place finish in that race got lost in the publicity about the 3-way tie. In 1962 we had taken home only three Harvard shirts, the other six of these prized trophies going to Navy and Cornell. At last we were to have another opportunity to match up with Harvard, essentially one-on-one, in a regular season race.
FINALLY, a race for which I have some pictures, the only race from the 1963 season for which I have any pictures at all. In fact, I’m not even certain that the following slide is of the Varsity race. After taking a very close look I have decided that it could just as easily have been the race between the Junior Varsities. Regardless, the results were similar in each race. We let out all the stops that day and literally walloped Harvard by three boat lengths1, with Dartmouth finishing slightly back of that. Both our Varsity and our JV left Hanover that afternoon with two full sets of crimson jerseys. The season was still young, but we had passed an important milestone. Both our Varsity and JV remained undefeated.
Have I mentioned the time-honored tradition in which the coxswain of the winning crew gets tossed into the river by his teammates? Until the previous week’s Yale/Dartmouth race this was an “honor” that I had experienced just twice in all my years at MIT, and never in a race as prestigious as the Biglin Bowl. It was well worth the wait. I will close this chapter by saying that I think we set the unofficial world’s record for the longest coxswain toss on that cold afternoon in Hanover, NH.
(Footnotes)
1 This from Peter Staecker ’64, in response to his receiving Chapter Five via an email:
“I’ll bet that Bob remembers his final command to the boat as we neared the finish line, but modesty prevents him from recalling in print, so, here’s another view of the day…
…After a string of losses to the Harvard Varsity extending back to 1955, broken only by the 1962 Sprint finish, the row upstream to the starting line that Biglin Bowl Saturday had its share of introspection and apprehension. As we proceeded to the stake boats, the official’s launch arrived from the previous race, and Gary announced to us that the JV’s had just won by 10 seconds. Instantly, the vision of the big red T on the Harvard dock took on new significance. We had a wonderful start, and about 30 strokes later, nearly open water. Poor Bob! After years of not having to worry about what direction to point the boat (just follow the crimson jerseys), he had to search the horizon for the proper navigation aid. Meanwhile, the lead kept widening. We came to the last 40 strokes, the pre-assigned spot on the Connecticut River that marked the equivalent location to the 40-more tree on the Charles… the usual spot where the coxswain implores the boat to find the strength to make up the deficit. This Saturday, however, with no deficit to make up, no crews in sight except in the rear-view mirror, and the finish line creeping ever closer, Bob, never at a loss for words, issued the proper command: “Just hold on to your oars!”