6. The Biglin Bowl: Reprise

Still in the clouds over our Biglin Bowl victory, we met at the boathouse to have our picture taken in our new Harvard shirts.  This slide has remained safely in my collection for 45 years and is obviously one of my favorites. 

I

I introduced you to these guys in an earlier chapter, but without a picture.  Left to right, back row, are Mark Barron ‘64, Herb Herrmann ‘64, Pete Staecker ‘64, Ron Cheek ‘63, Dennis Buss ‘63, Rick Metzinger ‘63, John Proctor ‘65, and Mike Greata ‘63.  In front, Bob Vernon ‘63.  I wish that Coach Gary Zwart had been in the photo as well.

At our 40th Class Reunion in 2003 we noted the lack of memorabilia in the MIT boathouse commemorating the 1962 and 1963 seasons.  To alleviate this, Gary Zwart and I made a gift to the boathouse of three 18”x24” framed pictures. The first, which you can also find on the cover of A Henley Memoir, is an overhead shot of the 1962 crew rowing under the bridge at Henley. The second, also featured in A Henley Memoir is that picture of the 1962 crew wearing the shirts of all of the competitors we had defeated at the Sprints.  The third, of the 1963 Lightweight Varsity, is the Harvard-shirts picture, above.

I’ll close with the following The Tech article written April 17, 1963. More goose bumps.  I have no recollection whatsoever of ever writing for The Tech, but the by-line in the article indicates otherwise.

Gary, we enjoyed this one, too!!

The closing paragraph in the news article in The Tech lists the times for each of the three lightweight races. You would have to read quite carefully to notice that the second fastest time of the day was rowed not by the Harvard Varsity, but by MIT’s Junior Varsity.  Conditions on the river can change considerably even during the brief intervals between races, so it is not really fair to compare times from one race to the next.  However, even with that caveat, there is a very strong possibility that the second best squad on the river that day was our own Junior Varsity.  In other words, had they been in the varsity race with us, they might very well have placed second, beating the Harvard Varsity.  I say this because in regular workouts day in and day out that entire season our JVs pushed us very hard, even beating us from time to time. Except for the Cornell Lightweight Varsity, they were the fastest crew we rowed against all season.

This highlights an additional strength of lightweight rowing at MIT in the 1960s. We not only had first-rate Varsity Eights, the program had excellent depth. It was not unusual for the lightweight squad to begin the season with four boats of oarsmen and, even though some attrition was inevitable, most years we would enter the championship week still having three full crews on the water-Varsity, Junior Varsity and Third Boat.

I recall the words of Coach Zwart in July 2007, when the 1962 Varsity celebrated the 45th anniversary of its participation in the Henley Royal Regatta. Gary reminded us that without the Junior Varsity and Third Boat pushing us every day during practice, it’s quite likely that there wouldn’t have been an MIT Crew at Henley in 1962.

Gary, truer words were never spoken. To the entire MIT 1963 lightweight squad, I will be forever grateful.