Fans Glide Through Town

Bettina Norton first attended the Head of the Charles Regatta in 1979.

At the time, she was in a wheelchair—temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. But she came to the event anyway to cheer on her daughter, Giulia.

Now, 23 years later, Giulia served as a race official for the regatta this weekend. She attended the event along with Bettina, who is no longer in a wheelchair, her husband John Norton ’56 and their dogs, Ichi-Ban and Muddy. Muddy was named for the Muddy River, one of the rivers which feeds the Charles.

The Nortons joined the crowd of around 250,000 who gathered on the banks of the river this weekend to watch the world’s best rowers compete in the 38th annual Head of the Charles regatta.

According to Giulia, the crowd has grown in the two decades she’s been attending the event.

“The crowd now is as enthusiastic as ever,” Norton said. “There are now kids cheering their parents alongside the parents cheering on their kids.”

Jim Connelly, a spokesperson for the regatta, said he attributes the larger crowd to increased media coverage.

But this year, he said, Saturday’s cold and cloudy weather diminished the size of the audience somewhat from the usual 300,000.

He said the crew teams now come to Cambridge from all over the world, widening the event’s fan base.

For members of the Radcliffe crew team who competed in the regatta this weekend, this event gave them an opportunity to protest new Ivy League restrictions on varsity athletics. The new guidelines mandate that most teams take seven weeks off practice per year—and rowers take 33 days.

In protest, the rowers wore shirts with the number seven on the back crossed out.

The rowers sent a letter on Oct. 18 to University President Lawrence H. Summers letting him know of their plans to protest the ruling.

“Ultimately, we row for the same essential reasons that the choristers sign and the model congress debates: we enjoy the challenge, the discipline, the camaraderie and, above all else, the chance to lead and excel,” the letter read.

Also at the weekend’s event, college alumni organizations set up banners and tents along the river proclaiming support for their teams.

The Cornell Club of Boston, for instance, handed out punch and pumpkin bread to well-wishers.

But for the rowers themselves, the weekend’s regatta was a serious matter, the culmination of years of grueling training.

Jan van Dam traveled from Amsterdam to represent the Nereus Rowing Club at the competition. His group took first place in the Men’s Club Eights after a third-place finish last year.

“We didn’t expect to win—one of our rowers had been injured at the start of the season...but when we heard we were catching up to Harvard’s boat, we were inspired,” he said.

“Actually, we have to go pick up our medals right now,” van Dam added.

Janet Pollard, a senior with the University of Oklahoma team, said the opportunity to row at the regatta was an honor in itself, even though her team did not come away with a medal.

“Being on this course was special for all of us,” she said. “We pulled our hardest because we knew we probably wouldn’t be able to return next year.”

Mike Malcos, whose daughter is a rower, has spent the Head of the Charles weekend cheering on the banks since 1995.

“I kind of forced her into it when she was a freshman in high school, but luckily, she fell in love with it,” he said. “We’ve been to the Henley Women’s Regatta [in England, but] this race is much more spectacular for the rowers and attendees.”

Kandi Finch, the event’s emergency services coach since 1977, sees a different side of the regatta.

She said she remembers disasters that include drunken spectators jumping off bridges into the river, a fried dough vendor with a burned hand, a child with a Cheerio lodged up his nose and a mounted police officer hit by a car.

On Wednesday, before the regatta began, a sculler was seriously injured when his one-person skull was hit by an eight-man shell, the Boston Globe reported Thursday.

John Yasaitis is currently in good condition at the Massachusetts General Hospital, according to a hospital spokesperson.

A spokesperson for the marine unit of the Massachusetts State Police confirmed yesterday that an investigation is ongoing.