Word: oarsman
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What makes Harry "the winningest coach" at Harvard? One oarsman put it succinctly: "Having raw muscle is just the starting point--what counts most is the psychology behind it. Harry gives us that psych factor...
Unlike most sports, crew trains all year for a single season in the spring. Throughout those 300 hours of fall and winter practice, each oarsman is sustained only by the distant image of racing season. As a result, those long hours of pre-season rowing--in a racing shell, in an indoor rowing tank, on an "unpleasant machine" called the ergometer--develops in each oarsman a formidable mental drive that will be focussed, months later, into a six-minute race...
High school talent and an intense freshman training program provide the foundation for Harvard's varsity crews. As one crew member said, "You've sweated through Ted's training--now you're ready for the professional discipline Harry demands." Coach Parker's credentials are also lengthy: an oarsman and sculler since college, he has worked with Harvard crews for 19 years and coached the U.S. national and Olympic women's crews. Gordong Gardiner '79, the team captain and varsity boat stroke, describes Parker: "Harry's the best in the country. He treads the very thin line between undercoaching and overcoaching...
...comments--and performance--of Harvard oarsmen make one point very clear: crew is a uniquely psychological sport. There is the very psychic sense of "we're all in the same boat"; one oarsman notes, "Crew is one of the purest team sports--there's an enormous amount of trust and cooperation involved and you can't mess up. Eight other guys are depending on you, and a single missed stroke of the oar can easily lose the race for everybody." A teammate adds, "You really feel like one machine--your oars are going in together, coming out together, you rest...
...race itself is a catharsis for all this tension. Boats begin from a dead standstill, and are quickly accelerated by short, fast strokes. The frenzy of those first few seconds is more than psychological--an oarsman must pull two square feet of wood through ten feet of water and return his oar for another stroke, all in a little more than one second. Several strokes into the race, the speed of rowing settles slightly, and the oarsman must precisely time his movements, keep the three-foot wide keel balanced, and maintain maximum power for some 200 additional strokes...