Lights Take HYPs; Heavies Persevere

1996

Sports Statistics

Record: Lights--3-0, 3-0 regatta; Heavies--3-3, 1-4

Lights Coach: Charlie Butt

Heavies Coach: Harry Parker

1997

Consistency, consistency, consistency.

This is the story of Harvard's crew program.

Harvard's first heavyweight boat has made the Grand Finals of the Eastern Sprints for 33 straight years. The next longest streak is four years.

Harvard's first lightweight boat raced this past weekend looking for its fourth national championship in seven years.

Consistency.

Lightweights

Things got off to a slow start for the lightweight team. A sluggish beginning in the fall season left Harvard's ability in doubt around the league.

"The fall was not so great," said senior David Hirsch. "People began discounting us around the league. Yale was supposed to be the dominant team."

Things looked that way. Harvard faltered at Princeton's three-mile race, losing to Yale's first and second boats.

"All the publications have the attitude of 'what have you done for me lately?,'" said co-captain Ted Shergalis. "We as a team don't emphasize the fall season. Crew is a nine-month sport so the fall is a chance to have fun and get back into shape. There was no despair in our hearts."

However the first race of the spring season did nothing to dispel the rumors of Harvard's decline.

The team normally dominates the San Diego Classic as the only Eastern team in attendance. This year, rival Yale decided to make the trip--Harvard paid for it.

Yale came in at 6:29.50, about a boatlength ahead of Harvard's second-place 6:33.33. But revenge is ever so sweet.

"Yale beat us by a boatlength and we had that on our minds going into the Harvard-Yale-Princeton race three weeks later," Hirsch said.

During those three weeks, Harvard seemed to regain some form, dominating Dartmouth by eight seconds and destroying Navy by more than 20 seconds.

At H-Y-Ps, Harvard turned the tables on Yale, defeating them by a nearly identical four-second margin. Harvard also gained a mark of revenge over Princeton, defeating them by a slim .4 second margin. This close race echoed the national championship race of 1996 where Princeton edged Harvard by a measly .02 seconds.

The faces and the results were the same two weeks later at the Eastern Sprints.

"Things worked out for us again," said Hirsch. "We beat Yale by a length and took the race."

Suddenly the team that many wrote off at the beginning of the season had to be the favorite heading into the national championships in Camden, New Jersey.

"People looking past us was helpful in a way," Hirsch said. "It gave us motivation to know they were writing us off. We weren't surprised--we had faith in ourselves and the team and especially the coach."

Coach Charlie Butt has been the driving force in Harvard's turnaround for the fall season.

"Coaching was really the number one thing," Hirsch said. "He told us what we were not executing and made sure we turned those things around for the spring."

"Coach Butt is a great guy who is coming into his own as a coach," Shregalis said. "He has devoted himself to the Harvard lightweights and really knows how to make boats move. In the past three years I have been with him he has really learned and improved."

With two-and-a-half weeks between Easterns and Nationals, the rowers have been eagerly anticipating a return to the competitive waters and a shot at regaining their national title.

"Everyone is getting itchy," Hirsch said. "We want another shot at those teams. All the guys in the boat that were there last year to lose to Princeton by two hundredths of a second want another chance. We are really excited."

The team is looking strong and has been getting faster over the last couple of weeks. Coach Butt has again prepared the team for a challenge from Yale and Princeton, even for the possibility of being coachless if a child is brought into the world--he and his wife are expecting.

Could there be a better gift from a team to a coach than a national title?

Heavyweights

The heavyweight season has not been as impressive as that of the lightweights, but Harvard's program is still consistently among the best in the country.

At the outset of the spring season it was clear that the Crimson was not considered among the nation's elite.

The heavyweights kicked things off in San Diego and were beaten by Yale--as well as six other teams. Washington took the title with a time of 6:06.98. Harvard came in at 6:25.37.

The team slowly but surely improved. Harvard was edged out by three seconds in its next race against Brown, and was defeated by Princeton by seven seconds a week later. Harvard did take this opportunity to pound the overmatched MIT boat, which finished 46 seconds behind Princeton.

The Crimson notched its first win of the season the next week in a race against Penn and Navy. This race showed how far the heavyweights had come.

In the San Diego Classic, Penn had finished third in a time of 6:14.36--more than eleven seconds faster than Harvard. This time Harvard defeated Penn by a 1.8 second margin--a remarkable 13 second improvement. Navy was a distant third.

Harvard faltered the next week in its matchup with Northeastern, losing by a second. However, the Eastern Sprints would allow Harvard a modicum of revenge.

Clearly in the second tier of the grand finals, Harvard was able to avenge the previous week's defeat by edging Northeastern by 4.4 seconds. Harvard also gained revenge against a strong Wisconsin boat that had finished fourth in San Diego.

Still the Crimson finished six seconds behind eventual champions Princeton and were never really in contention.

However, the Crimson's 33-year streak in the Grand Finals of Sprints is impressive--impressive like the Boston Bruins streak of over 30 years in the playoffs. Most Bostonians would agree that the streak is nice, but a Stanley Cup would be nicer.

Heavyweight crew would probably agree that a moment at the peak would be a welcome change.