Harvard, Radcliffe Conquer All Collegiate Waters

One word best sums up the Harvard men’s heavyweight crew program this season—invincible.

That word doesn’t just describe the Harvard first varsity boat’s dominance in races, where it won week-after-week by the largest margins in decades.

It also describes the program’s ability to endure an extraordinary number of public obstacles off the water. The rowers coped with new Ivy League training restrictions, a controversy surrounding a mammoth-sized snow phallus some of them had constructed, a bizarre assault on a first varsity rower by Northeastern rowers, the scheduling of the Crimson’s first national championship appearance in eight years and the resulting alteration of the Harvard-Yale regatta training schedule.

Through it all, the Harvard rowers had a focus—training so that they would never have to suffer the pain they felt after losing to Wisconsin at Eastern Sprints a year ago. Amid the chaos off the water rose a crew whose commitment on the water could never be shaken.

For their unrelenting dedication, Harvard was rewarded handsomely. The first varsity became the first Crimson crew to win Eastern Sprints since 1990 and the first ever to win an Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) national championship—a race it usually skips for Harvard-Yale regatta training. Given a Harvard-Yale victory this upcoming weekend, the boat will become the first to go undefeated since 1980, which was back before official national titles existed in men’s crew.

“I sit back and try to figure things out, and I’m still in shock,” said Harvard senior Mike Blomquist, the first varsity’s sixth seat. “I don’t see how that’s possible, how amazing this season has gone so far.”

Harvard also won the overall point trophy at Eastern Sprints and at IRAs, a reflection of the program’s depth beyond the varsity boat. The Crimson’s second varsity finished third at IRAs and won Sprints in dramatic come-from-behind fashion. The Harvard freshman boat also finished third at IRAs but second in Sprints. Those crews not only competed well in their own right, but by providing intrasquad competition, they helped build the varsity into the unbeatable specimen that won every race by open water.

“[The point trophies] reflect on how the varsity got to be that fast because you have all these guys behind there that are pushing them all season to make them what they are,” said Harvard captain Mike Skey. “It’s a great triumph to be able to do this. I think of the [junior varsity] as the sixth man on the basketball team. They ride the pine but still score some points. You’re not going to win unless you’re pushed all season.”

The way the Harvard rowers motivate each other showed most strikingly by how they dealt with the new training restrictions imposed by the Council of Ivy Presidents. The Council’s “seven-week rule” prevented Ivy athletes from training with coaches during a period of that length. Through protest, crew alone succeeded in reducing the period to five weeks.

Harvard rowing could have been adversely affected at the national level by this decision, but the people in the boathouse were too self-motivated to let that happen. They just trained harder on their own during the dead period.

“[The five-week rule] had the opposite effect of what the administration wanted to accomplish—[our rowers] wanted to train more,” Skey said. “It’s kind of like when you tell kids, ‘Don’t touch the hot iron.’ They’re going to touch it.”

Blomquist felt that given the time to train on their own, the Harvard rowers were given more freedom to feed off each other. In a vicious cycle, they ended up working harder than they might have otherwise.

“You see your buddy go in [training], and so you say, ‘I gotta go in,’” Blomquist said. “Then your buddy sees you go in, and says, ‘I gotta go in again.’ You end up putting in a lot of time.”

The major factor driving the boats’ work ethic was the first varsity’s shocking loss to Wisconsin last year at Eastern Sprints, its only defeat of the season.

“That left a very sour feeling in the squad,” Skey said. “This year was pretty much a rectifying of what happened and to not let that happen. That’s going to carry into the next two years. The kids who were part of that are not going to let that happen again.”

On Feb. 11, Harvard crew began to draw attention for its off-the-water actions when Skey helped direct rowers in the erection of a giant snow phallus in Harvard Yard. Its subsequent condemnation and destruction by feminists sparked national debate and even earned a Saturday Night Live mention. Publicly, Skey stayed out of the controversy and summed it up succinctly by saying, “Smart kids overanalyze things.”

Harvard crew was in the news again after March 8, but this time it took a far more serious tone. Sophomore Malcolm Howard of the first varsity was allegedly assaulted by two Northeastern rowers after a charity event at Weld Boathouse. Howard, who lost consciousness and suffered facial injuries at the time, was back in time for Harvard’s first dual race of the spring—against Northeastern. Rowers on both sides were quick to stress that the attack had nothing to do with Harvard or Northeastern crew.

“It’s the kind of sports talk that happens around other sports that you don’t think is ever going to happen around crew, but that’s the way it goes,” Blomquist said.

Once the season began, the heavyweights started being recognized for what they did best—winning. The first varsity beat Northeastern by 11 seconds, its largest margin of victory over the Huskies since 1968. It was followed up by a 16-second victory over Brown, a 13-second triumph over Princeton, and a five-second win over Navy. Harvard’s dominance was only beginning.

Throughout the spring, the Crimson kept trying to push its margins, thinking that someday it would be raced all the way to the end of the 2000-meter course. But that never happened, not at Eastern Sprints or IRAs.

Going into the final race of IRAs, the first varsity rowers thought certainly four-time defending champion California, up-and-coming Washington or old nemesis Wisconsin would give them a race down the final 20 strokes. But just like every other race this season, no one could keep up with Harvard by the halfway point.

Given the competition the Harvard first varsity boat faced and the consistent margins of victory it won by, the case could be made for it being among the greatest crews in Harvard history. But the rowers themselves are not going to say that. While invincibility may be one trait of the first varsity, humility is another.

“Every crew is special and if [others say] this is one of the best crews in history, okay, so be it,” Blomquist said. “But I just think the way it goes, we’re just another crew, one that happens to be pretty darn fast.”

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at deremer@post.harvard.edu.