For the Moment, Middies King of the River

"The mystique of Harvard and Penn is quite dead, but Navy must remember, 'Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown'"-Penn's Ted Nash.

"I must honestly confess I don't enjoy losing"-Harvard's Harry Parker.

And so it went Saturday morning on the placid Severn River near Annapolis, as the pendulum of intercollegiate rowing swung towards an inspired Navy crew, which captured its first Adams Cup in ten years by beating Harvard by half a boat length and Penn by a full one.

The victory will without a doubt leave the Middies seeded first in Saturday's Eastern Sprint Championships at Worcester. The winning crew, which averaged 6'3", 188 pounds, will now have to avoid a mental letdown before its sprint rematch.

"I doubt if we'll have one." Navy coach Carl Ullrich said afterwards. "You know winning is not something we're used to and I'm not too sure the boys have had enough of it these past two weeks to want to give it up."

The varsity upset was pulled off by a Middie crew which included four members of last year's Eastern Sprint champion plebe (freshmen) eight. Ullrich's squad jumped to a deck lead off the start and increased the margin to three-quarters of a length at the half-way mark.

With 800 meters to go, the Navy lead was a full length. A frantic Harvard sprint cut this margin in half by the finish, as Navy continued to understroke both opponents.

"The pressure is off," Nash said. "Sometimes even winning can be boring but I must say, not to take anything away from Carl's boys, that our boys came in just as mad as they could be. They felt they had a horrendous row. For sure there will be some bold changes next week both in our attitude approaching the race and in personnel. When you're five seconds back you have to do something drastic."

Harvard won the second varsity race by 1.4 seconds over a rallying Navy crew. "It was one of the best performances by a JV that I've seen in five years," Parker said.

The freshman race was indeed the most exciting of the day. Harvard held a lead of half a length to three quarters of the length for most of the race only to be nipped at the finish by a driving plebe eight. The margin of victory was a narrow 5 seconds over the Crimson and 9:5 seconds over the Quakers.

"It was a real slam-banger," Ullrich said. "The most exciting race I've ever seen." "We rowed an extremely good race," Parker added. "I'd like to chalk the whole thing off," Nash concluded. "If you find out what happened to my crew, let me know."