Parker's Young Men Go West for Crew Classic Head for San Diego Opener

The Harvard men's heavyweight crew will leave the choppy waters and biting winds of the Charles this afternoon for the balmy air of Mission Bay, San Diego, where a week of double-sessions will prepare them for the 2000-meter San Diego Crew Classic on April Fool's Day.

Coach Harry Parker's men, having emerged onto the still ice-patched Charles from the confines of Newell Boat House only last week, enter the California regatta at a severe disadvantage. Powerhouse crews from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Washington have been on the water since January.

Washington never faced Harvard in a head-to-head meeting last year but the west-coast school did capture the 1977, elite eight Grand Challenge Cup at England's Royal Henley Regatta, in which the Irish National Squad kayoed the Crimson in Harvard's first race.

Penn did defeat Harvard last season, breaking the Crimson's 24-race, four-year victory streak by one-tenth of a second in the Adams Cup race here in May. However, Harvard avenged the loss at the Eastern Sprints in Princeton only one week later, stroking to victory by one length in the varsity finals.

Nevertheless, both Penn strengthened by rowers from their Eastern sprint champion freshman and J.V. crews and Washington will, in Parker's words, "be very difficult to catch at this stage."

The Crimson has six rowers from last year's Eastern sprint championship crew returning, including the entire port side. However, Parker emphasized earlier in the week that "nothing is really resolved yet" and that none of these returnees are secure in their seats.

Parker did say that the 1977 stroke, junior Gordie Gardiner, and last year's number two man. Dave Boghossian, will battle it out for the varsity stroke spot.

Besides those two and last year's number six and four men. George Aitken and Warren Perkins, senior Jim Kenary and members of last year's J.V. are competing for seats on the port side. Kenary the surprise of the 1978 rowers, returned to Newell this year for the first time since leaving as a freshman.

On the starboard side, the Crimson will be trying to replace 1977 graduates John Brock and John White. Gardiner admitted yesterday, "John Brock was a really immense guy. You're going to feel his loss."

Last season's seven-man Tom Howes and three-man Paul Templeton will fight for varsity starboard spots with stellar sophomores Charlie Altekruse and George Hatch and 1977 J.V.'s. Parker had Altekruse switch from the port side during the early part of the school year in order to redress an apparent imbalance in the strengths of the Crimson's two sides.

Gardiner said yesterday that due to the limited time the Crimson has had on the water to prepare for San Diego, the cadence rate has been forced up in practice a lot faster than in other years. "Therefore we haven't had a chance to settle in comfortably and it feels a little rushed," Gardiner said.

The Crimson may indeed find the going tough in San Diego but past history and something about the way Parker said he expected difficulty from Penn and Washington "at this stage" of the season hints that by year's end it will be the other schools that are having the difficulty.

To steal a word from the heavyweight locker room bulletin board, "awesome" is what the heavyweights have been in the past and "awesome" is what you can expect them to be in the future as long as Harry Parker haunts aging Newell.