Word: coachful
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This is one of the techniques Tom Bolles knows to perfection, and one of the reasons he is the best coach this side of the Mississippi. By the end of Easter vacation, which usually comes only a couple of weeks after the crews first hit the water, he has his varsity picked, out, and he can start perfecting all the minute details of style that must be learned before the first race...
...coach follows his shells back and forth noting faults and weaknesses, and pointing them out with the use of a megaphone. As the opening race approaches. Belles reduces the amount of instruction and lets the crew find its own place and style. Therein lies another reason for Bolles' greatness: he is never a tyrant on form. He allows his oarsmen to retain their own quirks of style rather than insisting on uniformity at the expense of power and smoothness...
However, shortly before the race, Coach Bolles will go over the course (with his coxswain if it is a strange river) and analyze weather conditions to determine whether the time that afternoon will be fast or slow. He then talks things over briefly with his stroke. There is not much to say, because the pattern for the race seldom varies from a pre-established form...
Does all this answer the question of why Harvard has great crews? Certainly Coach Bolles' technique and ability had a tremendous amount to do with it. Certainly the presence of an excellent river and the best of equipment is a contributing cause. Perhaps Harvard's reputation as a rowing college helps to perpetuate the string of fine oarsmen that come here...
...beyond all this is the indefinable quality o morale and esprit which Coach Bolles feels is the most important cause of all. It is an esprit which can only come from eight oarsmen, a cox, and a coach who are dogged enough to spend months in the cold wind or broiling sun learning to pull a 12-foot oar through the water with the precision and power to win races on perhaps five Saturday afternoons in a year and to pull just as hard despite the fact that 99 out of 100 people who watch them don't even know...