I contend that our journey to Henley began in the fall of 1958 when Gerrit (aka, Gary) Zwart, a newly enrolled graduate student at MIT's School of Architecture was asked to coach the Freshman Lightweight Crew. A year later, on the first day I first met Gary, he looked so young that I thought he was one of the seniors on our squad. He was, in fact, quite young having graduated from Dartmouth only three or four years earlier, entering MIT after a stint in the Army. However—unusual in our sport—Gary had coached varsity lightweight crew during his last year(s) at Dartmouth, so as young as he was, he had the coaching experience that MIT needed. Yes, he would be studying architecture while holding down the coaching job, but it was rare in those days for MIT crew coaches to be full time, especially among the lightweights. Here's how I remember Gary from those days, although I don't know exactly when this picture was taken:

When Gary began coaching in 1958, I doubt there was anyone in the boathouse, except perhaps Jack Frailey and Val Skov, who could remember MIT winning a race of any kind, much less a race against perennial champion Harvard.  Jack and Val were the notable exceptions, as Jack Frailey had coached MIT’s Lightweight Crews in 1954 and 1955, crews that were the Henley champions both years, setting the gold standard for all MIT crews to follow. By the fall of 1958, Jack was coaching the Heavyweight Varsity, having become Head Coach of Rowing at MIT. Val Skov, the stroke oar for both the '54 and '55 Crews, was coach of the Varsity Lightweights.

In the spring of 1959, Gary's freshman lightweights (the Class of 1962) were the first in many years to make it into the finals of a Lightweight championship race, finishing fifth. The next spring, 1960, my Class of 1963 freshman crew finished third. And in the spring of 1961, the Class of 1964 freshmen shocked everyone—with the possible exception of themselves and their coach— by finishing first. Unbelievable. National Freshman Lightweight Champions! Here is that crew on the winners platform picking up their just rewards (this picture, compliments of my friend and the fine coxswain of the freshmen lights, Julian Adams):

You could feel the energy in the boathouse when the word got around that Gary Zwart was going to become Varsity Lightweight coach beginning in the fall of 1961. Without taking anything away from Val Skov, Gary, in his three years as freshman coach, had coached and earned the complete respect of every Lightweight oarsman in the entire boathouse, all of the current Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. We couldn't wait for the fall rowing season to begin.

Truthfully, a few of us upperclassmen wondered if the smartest thing Gary could do would be to simply make his freshman champions, now sophomores, the next Varsity Eight. (For those of you who are less familiar with the sport of rowing, the best eight oarsmen plus coxswain make up the Varsity; the next eight and coxswain become the Junior Varsity; then the 3rd boat, etc. etc.)  That fall and well into the spring of 1962, the competition for the seats in the Varsity Eight was fierce. Gary, always looking for the fastest combination, changed the boating almost daily. Ultimately, the crew that rowed in the championships in 1962 was made up of three Seniors (Capt. Jerry Manning, George Zimmerman and Chas Bruggemann), three Juniors (Dennis Buss, Steve Aldrich and myself), and three Sophomores (Mark Barron, Herb Hermann and Steve Richards - 1st, 3rd and 5th from the right in the Frosh champions picture above).

The spring rowing season would not go smoothly. We began the season with a satisfying win over Yale and Dartmouth, but neither of these schools was expected to be a contender in 1962. The following week we rowed in the Biglin Bowl, the annual three-way meet between Harvard, Dartmouth and MIT, a race that Harvard had won every year in recent memory. Without question, we regarded the Biglin Bowl as our most important race with the exception of the Eastern Sprints championships—where we would meet up with Harvard again. Gary had convinced us that the race was ours to win. However, we rowed poorly in a gale force wind that practically swamped our boat, and Harvard prevailed yet again. Here is Gary on my right with our new freshman coach Dick Resch just behind on my left, right after that bitter loss. We were not happy campers.

And so it went. The next week we lost to Cornell in our annual three-way competition against Cornell and Columbia. And yet, with all of the disappointments, we were undeterred. We were a young crew that had yet to develop a winning tradition, but we knew that as each week passed we were getting better...and better.

The next weekend we traveled to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for the annual three-way regatta between Penn, Navy and MIT. Since we anticipated a major win, this week would be the most disappointing of all. (Here are Chas Bruggemann and Mark Barron boarding the bus for the trip.)

Both Cornell and Harvard had beaten Navy earlier in the season. The word was out that Penn—who was not a threat—and Navy could be "had.”  But disaster struck. Our rudder got caught in the line that anchors the stake boat in place at the start of the race. I can remember to this day hearing Gary screaming at the referee to stop the race, as an equipment malfunction in the first minute of a race—by the established rules—requires a fresh start. By the time our boat broke free of the anchor line, probably no more than a few seconds into the race, we were two to three full boat lengths behind both Penn and Navy. The referee, who claimed after the race that he had not seen the incident with our rudder, let the race continue.

We managed to pass Penn at the halfway point but gained little ground on Navy. Our Frosh champions from a year earlier were said to have developed a "legendary” sprint, the sprint being those frantic last forty strokes of the race. In the last quarter mile of the race, they had gained a full boat length on Harvard and the others to win the championship. Stroke Mark Barron had brought the legendary sprint with him to the 1962 Varsity. We gained about 1 1/2 boat lengths on Navy in the last forty strokes of the race. In spite of the incident with the rudder, Navy's victory over us, as I recall, was no more than a few feet.

We loaded the shells on to the trailers....

....then boarded the bus for the trip back to Cambridge. It was the longest six-hour bus trip that anyone could remember. We arrived home after midnight, discouraged, but at the same time proud that we had "hung in" against Navy and Penn against overwhelming odds. We were again encouraged by Gary that better days were ahead. Still, in just one week we would compete in the Eastern Sprints—for Lightweight Crews, the national championship—having suffered defeat in the regular season at the hands of each of our major competitors.

Footnote: This is a picture taken from the dock of the University of Pennsylvania boathouse, overlooking the Schuylkill River. The location is East River Drive in Philadelphia, since renamed Kelly Drive after Jack Kelly, a prominent Olympic oarsman in the 1920s. Many Philadelphians think it was named after his daughter, Grace.

The redhead on the dock is sophomore Peter Staecker who, at that time, was rowing in our Junior Varsity. This was a remarkable achievement for an oarsman who had turned out for crew for the first time just that fall. By this time next year—my senior year, 1963—Pete would be rowing in the Varsity Eight, having developed into one of the strongest members of the team.