Saved By the Bell: Rowed to Ruin

On March 8, a Harvard sophomore and member of the crew team was found lying on the ground near the corner of JFK Street and Memorial Drive, near the same bridges where thousands gather every year to watch the Head of the Charles. He was badly injured and, according to reports, unsure of what had happened to him.

Two weeks later, police confirmed that two students face assault and larceny charges in connection with the incident. According to the victim, Malcolm Howard, the students attend Northeastern, which wasn’t much of a surprise to the dozens of people who had heard rumors that Northeastern crew members were somehow responsible.

I have difficulty bringing myself to write about this incident, chiefly because I know so little about it. Very few details are available, and given the sketchy nature of the early reports, it seems that members of both teams probably “aren’t talking.”

What’s more, one hesitates to trivialize what seems to have been a very serious episode. Howard lost consciousness and sustained severe facial injuries. The police are involved. And Harvard itself is a very small community, making commentary of this sort necessarily dicey.

And yet, here you go. Rowers after a charity event involving members of both teams at the Weld Boathouse. Assault. Bizarre.

In the March 20 edition of the Crimson, Howard downplayed any role a rivalry played in the incident.

“That had nothing to do with Northeastern rowing team and Harvard rowing team,” Howard said. “I do have a couple good friends on the Northeastern team.”

We can only hope that Howard’s words ring true. I don’t think this world, already waist-deep in madness, could stand a gangland crew rivalry without imploding, simply crumbling under the weight of its own absurdity.

I read the initial reports on the attack on these pages with great interest and some shock. To someone who owns three Sopranos DVD sets, crew captain Michael Skey’s comment that “Apparently, [Howard] took a slip on the ice,” sounded strongly reminiscent of some of Season 2’s better moments.

Now the picture is clearer, but no less surreal. Above all, let’s hope that Howard continues to recover from his injuries. But yes, let’s also hope like hell that this had nothing to do with the Northeastern and Harvard rowing teams.

I mean, come on. Talk about violating the Ivy League’s code of sportsmanship. It’s inconceivable to me that a Harvard sporting event—the Harvard of such class acts as squash coach Satinder Bajwa and three hundred years of gentlemanly history—could end in a postgame fracas worthy of Paulie Walnuts.

Woke up this morning,

Got myself an oar…

And we’re not even talking about the sports in which people actually hit each other. This is crew, in which the most violent event is, in theory, Crash B’s, and that’s only because of the name of the meet. It’s breezing up and down the (mostly) tranquil Charles River. It’s the sound of a diminutive but dedicated leader yelling “stroke” repeatedly as geese fly by and joggers pause to take in the idyllic scene.

It is not West Side Story. On the grand scale of all things hardcore, with 10 being “early 90s Compton” and 1 being “Pusey Library,” Northeastern crew should be several notches below the still-benign 2 Live Crew. That’s just the way it’s supposed to be.

A hardcore crosstown football or hockey—men’s or women’s—rivalry would make sense on some abstract level. A crew gang war would defy both logic and description.

One has to wonder—and given the absence of information, all one can do is wonder—what exactly possessed the alleged perpetrators to descend to such depths (assuming, of course, that it wasn’t the ice after all). Let’s hope, as Howard told the Crimson, that the folks responsible do indeed “get in trouble.”

And let’s hope that Howard was right, that that’s all there is to it. Let’s hope that some bizarre new underworld crew subculture wasn’t born or exposed that fateful night. Let’s hope that when the Harvard and Northeastern heavyweight crews meet—and the schedule says they’re supposed to this weekend—that nothing too bizarre happens On The Waterfront.

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.