All these Rowing Events this Weekend...

Photo: Ohio State.

This weekend sees some interesting regattas on both sides of the pond. In the U.S., it’s the NCAA in Indianapolis and the IRA on Lake Mercer. Bryan Kitch of RowingRelated has picked his ‘Crews to Watch’ at these championships in a well-written piece here, while you will find USRowing’s take on these two regattas here. Today is also when the National Rowing Foundation is inducting new members into the NRF’s Rowing Hall of Fame, which will happen at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal. Read more here.

In Europe, the European Championships are underway in Belgrade, Serbia, which you can read about here. This weekend it’s also the Scottish Championships and the Scottish Schools’ Championships at Strathclyde Country Park. You will get more info here. If you are interested in finding out how this year’s Nat Schools Regatta went in Nottingham, England, then read what British Rowing wrote about the regatta on their website, here.

The National Rowing Hall of Fame Class of 2014

Photo: USRowing.com

On Saturday, 31 May 2014, seventeen women and men will be inducted into the National Rowing Foundation’s Rowing Hall of Fame. In a comment, Kent Mitchell, Chair of the NRF Hall of Fame Selection Committee, said:

The Class of 2014 being honored for induction into our Rowing Hall of Fame embodies the achievement in performance, dedication, persistence and contribution to rowing necessary to earn this recognition. In 96 appearances over multiple years in Olympic Games and World Championship competition, these men and women have won 71 medals, 64 of them gold, and rowed their way into the grand finals 94% of the time. Hall of Fame induction standards are demanding, each of these honorees has met those standards by “open water”.

The individual athletes of the 2014 Class are: Porter Collins, Yasmin “Yaz” Farooq, James Koven, Garrett Miller, Tom Welsh and Michael Wherley.

One entire crew and their coach are also being inducted, the 2008 Olympic Champions in the Women’s Eight: Erin Cafaro, Lindsay Shoop, Anna Goodale, Eleanor Logan, Anna Mickelson Cummins, Susan Francia, Caroline Lind, Caryn Davies, Mary Whipple Murray and Coach Tom Terhaar.

Also inducted is a Patron, posthumously, John “Jack” Sulger, a legendary oarsman and coach of the New York Athletic Club, whom Jim Dietz spoke so warmly about at the latest Rowing History Forum held in America, in 2012.

The National Rowing Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held at The Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, at 100 College Road East, Princeton, NJ 08540, on Saturday, 31 May 2014.

To purchase tickets click here.

1956 Olympic Eights Races

Before the 1956 Olympic rowing regatta on Lake Wendouree, Ballarat, Australia, the U.S. eight had not lost one single Olympic race since 1920, winning gold 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948 and 1952. However, when the young men from Yale raced in their first heat at Ballarat, they only managed to take a third place, beaten by Australia and Canada. Slightly embarrassed, the Yalies made sure to win the repechage heat, then winning in the semi-final, and then crossing the finish line as the first boat in the final, taking the Olympic gold. After having crossed the line, three-seated John Cooke collapsed, giving everything he had in him.

In the old, interesting video above both John Cooke and David Wight are interviewed about the races. At the Rowing History Forum, held in March 2008, Wight gave a thrilling talk about how it felt to belong to an American crew who lost an Olympic race (and despite that, becoming Olympic champions). John Cooke's 1956 Olympic oar now hangs in the NRF's National Rowing Hall of Fame at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut.

The Story of the Martini Achter

Last Sunday, World Cup III ended in Lucerne, Switzerland. Following is the story of a special boat that was used by a U.S. crew to take the 1974 World Championships at Rotsee in Lucerne.

When visitors to Mystic Seaport – the Museum of America and the Sea, located in the village of Mystic, Connecticut, walk through the doors of the Visitors Reception Center at the Main Gate, the first thing they see, if they look up, is a magnificent racing shell hanging from the ceiling. This eight, the Martini Achter, is not only an indicator that the NRF’s National Rowing Hall of Fame is housed at Mystic Seaport, it is also on display because it has a remarkable place in the history of American rowing.

In 1973, after having raced at the European Championships in Moscow, a U.S. crew went to compete at the Heidelberg International Regatta in what was then West Germany. At Heidelberg, the Americans were short of one man in the eight race, the “Martini Achter Race”, where first prize was a brand new wooden eight which was built by the famous German boat builder Empacher in Eberbach. Joining the American oarsmen, Larry Gluckman, Calvin Coffey, Mike Vespoli, Hugh Stevenson, Terry Adams, Tim Mickelson, Ken Brown and Paul Hoffman, was the British rower Hugh Matheson (known to HTBS readers from entries about Chris Dodd’s brilliant book Pieces of Eight, published in 2012).

At the 1973 Heidelberg International Regatta, United States was the winner of the Martini Achter: Bow Larry Gluckman, 2 Calvin Coffey, 3 Hugh Matheson(GBR), 4 Mike Vespoli, 5 Hugh Stevenson, 6 Terry Adams, 7 Tim Mickelson, Stroke Ken Brown and Cox Paul Hoffman. Coach Steve Gladstone. From Peter Mallory's The Sport of Rowing.

In Peter Mallory’s splendid book The Sport of Rowing (2011), Gluckman is quoted saying that ‘Everybody wanted to win this beautiful Empacher wooden boat. It was like a piece of furniture.’ Norway entered a boat, too, and after the Americans had won the race, and the boat, Gluckman continued, ‘the Norwegians said, “Good row, America... and God Bless the Queen” because they knew one of our borrowed rowers, Hugh Matheson, was a Brit.’The Martini Achter stayed in Europe and came to belong to the NRF's fleet.

The following year, 1974, a slightly different U.S. crew went to compete at the World Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland, using the Martini Achter. The crew were: Bow Timothy Mickelson, 2 Kenneth Brown, 3 John Everett, 4 Mike Vespoli, 5 Mark Norelius, 6 Richard Cashin, 7 Hugh Stevenson, Stroke Alan Shealy and Cox David Weinberg, and Coach was Allen Rosenberg.

Here is a 3-minute film showing the eight practicing in the early summer of 1974 on Candlewood Lake in Connecticut before moving on to another training camp at Princeton, and then to Lucerne.



On the Rotsee, in an extremely tough race, which came to be known as “The Race of the Century,” the U.S. eight competed in the final against the world’s best rowing nations at that time, East Germany, Soviet Union, New Zealand, Great Britain and West Germany. New Zealand was in the lead for the first 1,800 metres, but then the crew in the Martini Achter put on a spurt which gave the Americans a slight lead. They managed to hold on to it and crossed the finish line as the World Champions. Another remarkable crew were the British who took a silver medal, despite having been dead last for most of the race. New Zealand came in third, East Germany forth, the Soviets fifth and West Germany sixth.

The Martini Achter was afterward used by the men’s varsity eight from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, to win the 1976 Ladies’ Challenge Plate at the Henley Royal Regatta, and by the University of Washington men’s varsity eight to take the 1977 Grand Challenge Cup, also at Henley. Later the boat was sold to a club in England.

In an e-mail to HTBS, Mike Vespoli writes, that some English oarsmen

...rowed it over a submerged shopping cart and tore a big hole in it. It sat in rack at the Thames Tradesmen Rowing Club where I found it and bought it for 500 British pounds and brought it back to the U.S. I contacted my boat mates from the ‘74 crew and we all chipped in to get the boat restored so that we could take a row in 1999 at the world champs in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada to celebrate our 25th anniversary. The restoration cost four times the original sale price!

The Martini Achter was restored by boat builder Graeme King in Putney, Vermont. He spent around 200 hours restoring the shell to its former beauty, he has told HTBS. It took 420 hours to build it originally and then the hull was formed by vacuum with three layers of Spanish cedar veneer over a mold. After that, the framework was fitted in. When restoring the shell, King used 3/32” plywood, then laminated on a sheet of 1/32” African mahogany veneer.

Here is some data of the Martini Achter:
Builder: Empacher boat builder, Eberbach, Germany.
Length: 57 feet
Weight: 250 lbs (boat), 8 oars, total 60 lb.
Top Speed: Over 3 miles, 18 feet/second; in a sprint, 22 feet/second

The last words go to Mike Vespoli:

If Mystic Seaport ever decides to remove the shell from public display then we [the ’74 crew] would take possession of it. It was also agreed that we could use this shell in 2024 to celebrate our 50th!

If this ever happens, HTBS promises to be there taking a picture.

A History of Collegiate Rowing in America

American rowing historians and rowing history buffs alike are very proud to announce that rowing – that is, the sport of rowing – was the first collegiate sport in the USA. Modelled after the famous Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, which was raced the first time in 1829, the first Yale-Harvard race took place at Lake Winnipesaukee in 1852, with a victory for Harvard. In 1852, Harvard and Yale were not the only colleges with a rowing programme; Dartmouth started its programme in the beginning of the 1830s and students at Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.) formed a rowing club in 1849 (with Yale in 1843 and Harvard in 1844).

Although, rowing clubs were formed outside the colleges, it was collegiate rowing that was the firm base whereupon American rowing was resting for many years. It was, for example, college and university crews that represented the USA (and took the gold medals) in the eights in the Olympic Games from 1920 to 1956. Today there are more than 300 rowing programmes in America, Daniella K. Garran writes in her A History of Collegiate Rowing in America, which was published last autumn by Schiffer Publishing. As with most of Schiffer’s books, A History of Collegiate Rowing in America has a generous amount of beautiful illustrations, well, 142 to be exact, and with that it is a real coffee table book. With all these hundreds of rowing programmes widespread over the country, it is impossible to mention them all in a book close to 200 pages. Instead, it is the usual colleges and universities that are counted up with brief historic notes; in addition to those already mentioned: Bowdoin, Penn, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Navy, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Washington, Cal-UW, Stanford, UCLA, to only mention a few. Garran, whose own rowing career was as a successful coxswain at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., in order to cover as much ground, or should I say, water, as possible has special chapters on famous collegiate rowing coaches (Courtney, Ebright, Gladstone, Nash, Parker, Teti, Ulbrickson, etc., etc.), Head races, Championships, Sprint races, Women’s rowing, Lightweight rowing, Conferences, and also regattas abroad: Henley in England and Canadian Henley, Under 23 Championships, World University Championships and, of course, the Olympics. Other text bites are rowing equipment and rowing term glossary.

The ambitious author has really tried to cover all the bases, not merely by giving us a lot of the history of the different clubs, coaches, crews, and lists of all rowing programmes, etc., she has also added ‘oddities’ that for non-rowers might seem peculiar: ‘shirt betting’ and ‘cox tossing’. Clearly, Garren’s work is meant to be a reference book for those high school students – rowers and non-rowers – who aspire to row at a college or university, but also to steer the post-collegiate student in the right direction when he or she just have to continue to mess around in boats after college graduation, at a club or on a high level as the World Championships or the Olympics.

A History of Collegiate Rowing in America is indeed a well-written book and with its many marvellous photographs, most of them in colour – personally I am happy to see some photographs from the National Rowing Hall of Fame in Mystic, Conn., – it is a grand looking book. However, I cannot help wishing for more interference from an editor. Some of the ‘chapters’ or sections are bits and pieces that now look thrown in at the back of the book in lack of better spots and meaning. I found the rowing songs and poems in the book tremendously interesting, except without any deeper descriptions or analysis of these texts, what is the point of publishing them?

I also wished that Garren and/or the publisher would have contacted one or all of the three renowned American rowing historians, Tom Weil, Bill Miller or Peter Mallory, for a quick read-through of the manuscript. I am sure they would have spotted some of the unfortunate historical mistakes and errors that have sneaked into the book. To mention some: Hiram Conibear, coach at University of Washington, did not die in a car accident, he died from falling down from a tree (Garren has it correct in one place of the book but wrong in another – the question still remains: was it a plum, an apple or a pear tree?); the Syracuse coach Gus Eriksen was not a native of Sweden, he was born in Seattle, but could speak Swedish because his parents came from the Swedish-speaking island of Åland, which belongs to Finland; the first Americans to race at Henley Royal Regatta where not from Columbia College in 1878, it was E. Smith of Atlanta RC (New York) in 1872 in the Diamonds; and R.C. Lehmann did not write his Rowing (1897) together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, the later was the editor of the book (but C.M. Pitman and Guy Nickalls wrote a chapter each in the book). While Garren writes that ‘one cannot help but compare Doggett’s Coat and Badge [Race] to some of the long-storied cup races in American collegiate rowing or to centuries-long traditions such as the Harvard-Yale race’, I have to confess that I do have a hard time comparing any American amateur collegiate rowing race with an English sculling race for professionals which was rowed for the first time close to 70 years before the USA got its independence.

Whereas these historical hiccups are slightly irritating, the over-all view of this book is positive. No one can deny that Daniella Garran loves the sport of rowing and that she wants to share it with as many people as possible. I wish her luck in this endeavour.

The 2012 Rowing Hall Of Fame Inductees

Yesterday evening, on 10 March 2012, the National Rowing Foundation (NRF), the governing body of the National Rowing Hall of Fame, inducted nineteen new members into ‘The Hall’. The following athletes were honoured for their individual accomplishments: Jennifer Dore Terhaar (not present), Jeff Klepacki, Robert Kaehler, Mary McCagg, and Elizabeth McCagg Hills. Three crews were honoured for their results: the 1972 Olympic men’s eight and coach, Michael Livingston, Cleve Livingston, William Hobbs, Eugene "Gene" Clapp, Timothy Mickelson, Peter Raymond, Franklin "Fritz" Hobbs (not present), Lawrence "Monk" Terry, Paul Hoffman, and Coach Harry Parker (pic on the right); the 1992 Olympic women’s pair, Anna Seaton and Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson; and the 2000 Olympic men’s pair, Ted Murphy and Sebastian Bea.

This was the second time in its 56-year existence that the National Rowing Hall of Fame hosted a stand-alone induction ceremony. It was held at Latitude 41 Restaurant at Mystic Seaport. The festivities began, however, with a reception party at the Rowing Hall of Fame in the G. W. Blunt White Building where the inductees, their families and friends, together with invited guests, quickly came into a good celebration mood. Many of the U.S. rowing community were present, including some members of the Rowing Hall of Fame. Before the banquet with the induction ceremony started, the inductees nicely lined up for photo shoots in front of gentlemen of the press and family members with cameras. The rowers were placed by Hart Perry’s old dinghy, which the previous evening had been up for auction. This celebration of the rowers was the brainchild of Hart’s and his absents was deeply felt by all, although his spirit will live on as long as there are rowers to be inducted into the “Hall”.

Jeff Klepacki and Robert Kaehler.

Twins Elizabeth McCagg Hills and Mary McCagg.

The 2000 Olympic men’s pair, Ted Murphy and Sebastian Bea.

The 1992 Olympic womens’ pair, Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson and Anna Seaton.

The 1972 Olympic men’s eight, from right to left (in the positions they rowed), Michael Livingston, Cleve Livingston, William Hobbs, Gene Clapp, Timothy Mickelson, Peter Raymond, Monk Terry, and Paul Hoffman. 7-seated Fritz Hobbs and Coach Harry Parker not present at the photo shoot.

A Wonderful Tribute To Hart Perry!

Yesterday was a lovely evening at the Rowing Hall of Fame at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut. Around 75 people had gathered to celebrate the memory of dear Hart Perry, who passed away on 3 February, 2011. It was not only a tribute to Hart, but also a fund-raising party and silent auction in his name for rowing history, the National Rowing Hall of Fame, and rowing exhibits. Many of the items had belonged to Hart, but there were also some rare posters by artist Thomas Kudzma, who created brilliant art work between the 1960s and the 1980s. While I am writing this I am not sure how much the silent auction brought in, but it seemed most of the rowing objects that were up for auction had bids, and I walked home with a beautiful print under my arm. While all the bids for the objects closed at 8 p.m., the bids for Hart's old dinghy run until 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Here is a photographic cavalcade from the wonderful evening:

Grand Rowing Events In Mystic This Weekend

This is just a little reminder about the big rowing events that is going on in Mystic, Connecticut, today and tomorrow, Saturday. This evening, starting at 5:30 p.m., is the cocktail reception in memory of Hart Perry. This is a fund-raising event and the proceeds from this event will be used for projects related to rowing history and the National Rowing Hall of Fame and rowing exhibits. To raise money there is a silent auction where Hart Perry's old dinghy (see picture above) will be the main object. However, the last couple of weeks have also seen other rowing objects coming in, so there will be rowing books, posters, prints, and other rowing memorabilia to be auctioned off as well. Tickets for this event is $100.

Tomorrow, Saturday, during the day, the Rowing History Forum will take place, and in the evening there is going to be a grand banquet to honour the 2012 Rowing Hall of Famers.

Read more about all these three events here.

National Rowing Hall of Fame Events on 9 & 10 March 2012

National Rowing Hall of Fame Events on 9 & 10 March 2012 Featuring the Induction of the National Rowing Hall of Fame Class of 2012 on Saturday, 10 March

Event Descriptions and Details:

Friday, 9 March 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Cocktail Reception, Raw Bar and Silent Auction in memory of Hart Perry. Proceeds from this event will be used for projects related to Rowing History and The National Rowing Hall of Fame and Exhibits. Cost $100 per person. Location: The National Rowing Hall of Fame in the G.W. Blunt White Building at Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Avenue in Mystic, Conn 06355.
The highlight of the evening will be the auction of Hart Perry’s Thames pulling dinghy, donated by Gill Perry and the Perry family. This boat once belonged to famous Oxford Blue and Olympic champion Don Burnell (1875-1969), father of renown oarsman, Oxford Blue, Olympic champion, and rowing journalist Dickie Burnell (1917-1995).

Saturday 10 March 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Rowing History Forum
Guest Speaker will be Peter Raymond, Princeton ’68, Olympic Four 1968, Olympic eight 1972, and member of The National Rowing Hall of Fame Class of 2012. Additional presenters are Tom Weil, Joanne Iverson, Peter Mallory, and Christopher Dodd.
For additional information go to www.RowingHistory.net/forum.htm or send an email to Bill Miller at bmiller@verizon.net. Cost $40 per person, lunch will be served. Location: The River Room in Latitude 41 Restaurant at Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Avenue in Mystic, Conn 06355.

Saturday 10 March 5:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.
National Rowing Hall of Fame – Class of 2012 Induction Ceremony & Reception
Come to honor and celebrate the Class of 2012 at a cocktail reception in the National Rowing Hall of Fame, followed by dinner and the Induction Ceremony. Cost $200 per person. Location: The National Rowing Hall of Fame in the G.W. Blunt White Building and the River Room in Latitude 41 Restaurant at Mystic Seaport, 75 Greenmanville Avenue in Mystic, Conn 06355.

The Class of 2012:
Sebastian Bea ~ Eugene Clapp ~ Elizabeth S. McCagg Hills ~ Franklin Hobbs IV ~ William Hobbs ~ Paul A. Hoffman ~ Anna Seaton Huntington ~ Robert Kaehler ~ Jeff Klepacki ~ J. Cleve Livingston ~ Michael Livingston ~ Mary McCagg ~ Timothy C. Mickelson Lawrence “Monk” Terry ~ Ted Murphy ~ Harry Parker ~ Stephanie Maxwell Pierson ~ Peter Raymond ~ Jennifer Dore Terhaar

Please register online at www.natrowing.org

Reception In Memory Of Hart Perry

Exactly a year ago, on 3 February, 2011, Hart Perry passed away. Those of us who worked with Hart almost weekly on many of his ideas and other tasks to raise awareness and support of the sport of rowing still miss him immensely. We miss his guiding hand, but also Hart as a person, his gentle smile and that special twinkle in his eyes that you would see when you realised that you yet again had signed up for a chore that you normally would have turned down if it was not Hart who had asked you. But you also knew that the job, big or small, was for the general good of rowing. And Hart was never, never late telling people that you had done a great job, not he.

On 5 February, 2011, I published some memorial words about Hart which begins,

With the passing of Hart Perry an era has come to an end. Without exaggeration it can be said, that never in any sport have so many athletes had so much to thank one single man for. Thousands and thousands of rowers and others involved in our much-loved sport would not be where they are today if it had not been for Hart Perry, both when it comes to rowing, but also for what kind of persons they would become after their rowing career was over. I am one of them. Read the rest of the entry…

On Friday evening 9 March, 2012, there will be a Cocktail Reception & Raw Bar in memory of Hart Perry in the National Rowing Hall of Fame in the G.W. Blunt White building at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut. There will soon be more details and information posted on the National Rowing Foundation’s website about this event. This is one of three rowing events during the weekend of 9-10 March. During the day on Saturday, the 6th Rowing History Forum will be held in the River Room in Latitude 41° Restaurant by Mystic Seaport. More information here.

In the evening on Saturday, the National Rowing Foundation will host the Hall of Fame Induction Banquet, also in the River Room. Induction Banquet information will be also be posted on the NRF website but it will be by invitation, only.

Rowing Hall Of Fame Class Of 2012

The National Rowing Foundation (NRF) has announced the names of the Class of 2012, scheduled for induction into the National Rowing Hall of Fame on March 10, 2012, at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut.

The Class of 2012 includes 19 of the United States’ most accomplished rowers. Selected for their achievements in the sport of rowing, the categories for induction are based on individual accomplishments or results in a specific boat.

The following athletes will be honored for their individual accomplishments: Jennifer Dore Terhaar, Jeff Klepacki, Robert Kaehler, and twins Mary McCagg and Elizabeth McCagg Hills.

The selected boats are being honored for their results: the 1972 Olympic men’s eight and coach (Michael Livingston, Cleve Livingston, William Hobbs, Gene Clapp, Timothy Mickelson, Peter Raymond, Fritz Hobbs, Lawrence Terry, Paul Hoffman, and Coach Harry Parker), the 1992 Olympic women’s pair (Anna Seaton and Stephanie Maxwell-Pierson) and the 2000 Olympic men’s pair (Ted Murphy and Sebastian Bea).

For additional information, contact Mara Keggi Ford (203) 525-6566, or Gillian Perry (860) 535-0634, or National Rowing Foundation, email: natrowing@comcast.net

A Tribute To Hart Perry

As this is the 700th post on HTBS, I thought it should be something special.

Slightly more than a week ago, rowing historians Tom Weil and Bill Miller rearranged some of the artefacts in "Let Her Run", the rowing exhibit in the National Rowing Hall of Fame at Mystic Seaport. One of the exhibit cases now celebrates the life of and good rowing works by Hart Perry, NRF's executive director who was instrumental in getting and opening the Rowing Hall of Fame at the Museum in Mystic, and who passed away in early February this year.

Several times during his lifetime, Hart was honoured by having a boat named after him; the picture in the middle shows Hart on a Mystic Seaport dock by an eight from Stonington High School, carrying his name. The small picture on the right shows Hart in his little dinghy, which he bought from the Olympian oarsman, rowing journalist and writer, and fellow Henley Steward, 'Dickie' Burnell.

Tom and Bill had help from Hart's wife, Gillian, who had gathered some things from Hart's rich and fulfilling career which he so much loved, and, one can say, loved him back. That is, all the rowers and others within the sport whom he had helped and supported, looked up to this unselfish, good statue of a man with warm gratitude.

In the show case, you will find memorabilia from all the corners that Hart had touched with his magic wand: Dartmouth College, Kent School, Henley Royal Regatta, FISA, N.A.A.O., junior rowing, NRF, and the Rowing Hall of Fame, to now only mention a few institutions which have gained immensely from having Hart as a member, and in many cases, their leader.

Tom and Bill have done a great job. It is, indeed, a worthy tribute to our friend, Hart Perry.

As a Henley Steward, Hart met several Royalties, including Princess Anne, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Princess Grace of Monaco (the latter not in this picture).

1972 Famous Kent Crew

Yesterday, author Rick Rinehart was signing his latest book, Men of Kent, at the bookstore at Mystic Seaport Museum. The book is about the ten boys from Kent School who in 1972 went to Henley Royal Regatta to compete, following a fine Kent tradition to race in this famous regatta. In an article in Rowing News in June 2007, "The Greatest Eights: High Schools and junior Clubs", Andy Anderson writes "For American schoolboy crews, a trip to the Henley Royal Regatta has long been the reward for a stellar season. And every rower who's had his passport stamped has Kent to thank for this tradition."

After the book signing, a little reception was held in the Blunt White Building that holds the National Rowing Foundation’s Rowing Hall of Fame. Besides bowman Rinehart and his wife Amy and some other family members and friends, were some of the ‘boys’ that rowed in Kent’s famous 1972 eight that took the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup: Fred Elliott, Murray Beach, John Rooney, Garth Griffin, and their coach, William Hartwell Perry, called ‘Boss’ by the ‘boys’.

Hart Perry, now Executive Director of the National Rowing Foundation and in charge of the Rowing Hall of Fame, had decorated the lobby in the Blunt White Building with memorabilia of his Kent crew, an oar blade with the names of the victorious crew, a shield carrying the boys’ names, and a special book he received from Kent’s headmaster at the time, Father Pete Woodward.

I dropped off after I had taken some photographs and got the present crew members signatures in my copy of Rick Rinehart’s book. And, no, I will not sell it on eBay in a couple of weeks time…

A Day Of Rowing Memorabilia

Today, I am off to supervise some volunteers, Mystic Seaport Museum Pilots, in the Rowing Hall of Fame and the rowing exhibit 'Let Her Run'. This is the third time I am doing this, and I love it! We go through the stacks 'behind the scene' and sort and catalogue old rowing memorabilia for a whole day - wonderful! You never know what might show up.

Presentation Of The 2010 Rowing Hall Of Fame Inductees

Photograph by Andy Price

Today the National Rowing Foundation (NRF) posted a wonderful presentation of quotes and sayings about and by the 2010 Rowing Hall of Fame Inductees. The presentation is compiled by NRF Shield Fellows Lindsay Shoop and Dan Walsh. Read it by clicking here.

Oh, What A Swell Party It Was!

On Saturday evening, 20 March 2010, the National Rowing Foundation (NRF), the governing body of the National Rowing Hall of Fame, inducted eighteen new members into ‘The Hall’. It was, as NRF’s Executive Director Hart Perry put it, “an historic occasion [as it was] the first time in its 54-year existence that the National Rowing Hall of Fame has hosted a stand-alone induction ceremony.” And what a ceremony it was! 253 people had gathered to honour, celebrate, and cheer on the Inductees when they received their certificates from the hands of Hart Perry, who this evening saw a dream come true.

The Inductees were (click here to get a presentation of their achievements; and their presenters are in parenthesis): James W. Dietz (Bill Miller); Anne Marden Grainger (Barb Kirsch); Karen Rigsby and Missy Schwen Ryan (Larry Hough); Thomas Bohrer, who was not present due to an accident (Ted Nash); Amy Fuller Kearney (Mary Whipple); the late Andrew Sudduth (Harry Parker); Anita DeFrantz (Paul Fuchs); Michael F. Teti (Kris Korzeniowski); the 2004 Athens Olympic Men’s Eight: Jason Read, Wyatt Allen, Christian Ahrens, Joseph Hansen, Matthew Deakins, Daniel J. Beery, Beau Hoopman, Bryan Volpenhein, and coxswain Peter M. Cipollone (Michael Teti).

The festivities began with a reception party at the Rowing Hall of Fame in the G.W. Blunt White Building (where the grand rowing exhibit ‘Let Her Run’ is also located) at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. ‘Blunt White’ quickly became crowed. And ‘everybody’ in the U.S. rowing community seemed to be there and nicely dressed-up, too (I actually saw a couple of dinner jackets/tuxedos). They were having a good time. The weather gods were working well with the organisers and the sun was shining from a cloud-free sky on those who preferred to be outside.

At 7:00 p.m. the banquet with the ceremony started at the museum’s restaurant across the way from ‘The Hall’. Hart Perry welcomed all, and the ceremony began with the oldest Inductee. Jim Dietz (born in 1949; seen in the photo on the right) was introduced and awarded his certificate. And then it rolled on. There were many touching, moving, and funny talks delivered by both the presenters – and here maybe the coaches Ted Nash’s and Kris Korzeniowski’s speeches stood out – and by the Inductees. All the Inductees got standing ovations both when they approached the podium and after they had received the certificates that proved that they now belonged to an extraordinary group of American sportsmen and sportswomen.

With a dozen or so members of the Rowing Hall of Fame present and the eighteen Inductees, someone pointed out that never before, counting Olympic and World Championship rowing medals, had that many prominent American oarsmen and oarswomen been gathered at one single event. This was not hard to believe, because wherever one turned there were old and more recent champions and their famous coaches chatting or sipping a drink or two.

At the banquet I was lucky ending up at the 'rowing historian table', with well-known scholars like Chris Dodd, William Lanouette, Peter Mallory, Bill Miller (seen on the left), and Tom Weil.

It was a wonderful evening!