8. The 1963 Sprints

I’ll lead off with a The Tech article that preceded the 1963 Sprints.  1963 may have been the only season in the history of MIT rowing when a MIT Varsity Crew entered the Sprints undefeated.  It was most certainly the only season in which both the Varsity and the JV were undefeated.  [The following article also ended my short and unremarkable career as a journalist.1]

With MIT and Cornell seeded #1 and #2, we would row in separate morning heats.  The top three crews in each heat would qualify to race in the 6-lane final in the afternoon.  Boats finishing first in the heats were entitled to one of the center lanes in the final. Both we and Cornell accomplished this with what seemed like relative ease.

I have only my memory to fall back on here, but if anyone out there has a post-Sprints news article I would love to have a copy.  As I recall the action, the final was a two-boat race from start to finish.  I do not believe that we were ahead of Cornell at any point in the race, but never were we more than 3/4 length behind.  We raced Cornell side-by-side, stroke-for-stroke, all the way down the course, with the other four competitors quickly falling away.

In 1962, the MIT Lightweights became known for their “legendary sprint,” the last forty strokes that had brought us from more than a length behind into the 3-way tie, just one year earlier. We hadn’t needed such a sprint during the entire 1963 season, but we would definitely need one today. 

We raced our hearts out, finishing the race completely numbed and exhausted.  We gave it our best effort; in today’s vernacular, a race commentator might use a basketball analogy, saying, “MIT left it all on the court.”  But we came six feet short of nipping Cornell at the finish.

We had no excuses for losing, and we made no excuses. There were plenty of tears, but we accepted that on this particular day we were not the fastest crew on the course.  Had we rowed a poor race? The overall race results said that we had not.  All of the other competitors in the race, including arch rivals Harvard and Navy, were three or more lengths behind Cornell and ourselves.  We did not learn until after the Varsity final that the JV race had a similar result, a closely contested loss to Cornell. The entire bus was silent during the short trip back to Cambridge. It took less than an hour, but it seemed like an eternity.

Today, we can look back at this race with forty-five years of perspective.  Cornell had finished their academic year and, to their credit, had made the best possible use of the two weeks since we had defeated them at Ithaca. They were also a determined bunch.  As was the tradition, we met the Cornell crew at the dock after the race to forfeit our rowing shirts.  We were more than a bit surprised to see that they had each of our names taped inside their shell, a constant reminder of their loss to us in the Geiger Cup two weeks earlier. [Quite a compliment, I think, looking back at this these many years later.]  Cornell had set out to beat us, and they had done it.

After a day or two had passed, we realized that each of us was harboring the same dream; we desperately wanted a “rubber match,” a chance to row Cornell a third time to settle the score.  Our perspective on this was that the grueling season, road trips and academic schedule had taken their toll, had left us six feet short of the perfect season. There was never any doubt in our minds that once exams were behind us and with a little rest and recuperation, we could beat Cornell any day, every day.  Racing them at the Henley Royal Regatta would be the ideal scenario.

But it was not to be.  We had assumed that Cornell would go to Henley, but for reasons unknown to us, they did not. Second, we knew that there was only a very slight chance that MIT would send us, a second place team, to row in the Henley Regatta.  Indeed, there was some precedent for such an exception.  The 1954 Crew had won the Sprints, was invited to Henley, and had won their event, the Thames Challenge Cup.  In 1955, they placed second at the Sprints, but were invited back to Henley to defend the Cup.  They did so successfully, beating the crew that had overturned them at the Sprints. The opportunity to match their success would have been our dream come true.

However, the situation did not play out the same way, most probably because we were not the holders of the Cup; that is, we had no Thames Cup to defend.  A few days passed, but we soon learned that MIT would send us to the American Henley Regatta in Saratoga Springs, NY; a trip to the Henley Regatta in England was simply not to be.  It was completely unrealistic to have even hoped for a different outcome, but to this day I regret that the 1963 squad, especially those who had not rowed on the 1962 Varsity, missed a chance to experience the Henley Royal Regatta.

After the Sprints, we had a break of about ten days before resuming training for the American Henley. In that interim, we had a couple of important details to take care of-final exams and, oh yes, graduation.

We convened at the boathouse just one time during reading period and finals, most probably to pose for the customary team pictures and to learn more of the details about our upcoming trip to the American Henley. My recollection is that Gary was not at all surprised that what we were mainly interested in doing was hopping into our boat for a short workout. That, we did. After a short warm up down to Harvard Bridge, we turned the shell around, lining up for another of those all-too-familiar time trials from the Bridge to the Finish Line. What happened that afternoon seemed like a miracle. With the academic cobwebs brushed aside and, most importantly, with well-rested bodies, we recorded the fastest ? mile time of the entire season. A quick scan of the log books indicated that it was, most likely, the fastest time ever recorded by an MIT lightweight crew. Fittingly, this was the last time trial of my four years at MIT.

(Footnotes)

1 My intention, here, is that the reader just pick up the theme, that is, the headline of the article. A larger, more legible copy of the article appears at the end of this chapter.