COACH OF THE YEAR RUNNER-UP: Another Great Year for Parker

There are many legends in the sport of men’s collegiate crew. But Harry Parker, the coach of the Harvard men’s heavyweight crew team, stands even a few rungs above the rest of them.

“His reputation precedes him,” varsity stroke George Kitovitz said. “You’ve just got to look at his results and how well his crews have performed, which is a reflection of their coaching.”

These results, though, are not just a mere decade’s worth, but stretch over the 46 years Parker has been a presence at Newell boathouse—an era colored consistently with gold. They include nine national championships, 21 varsity firsts at Eastern Sprints, 19 undefeated seasons, and a dual coaching record of 275-41-1—a success rate of 87 percent. He has also, outside the bounds of Harvard, coached five different US Olympic rowing teams.

“While he’s encouraging of all the rowers,” captain Nick Baker said, “he’s also able to make the group motivate themselves, which is one of the biggest challenges.”

Parker first joined the coaching ranks at Newell as freshman coach in 1961 after learning to row while at Penn and competing internationally in single sculling, including one stint in the Olympics where he placed fifth in the finals in 1960.

He was promoted to head coach in 1963 after varsity coach Harvey Love died suddenly from a heart attack. Though it was originally only a temporary measure, Parker’s Harvard boat beat Yale in the last—and most contested—dual race of the season, and the appointment became permanent in the strongest sense of the word.

“I think it’s pretty hard to describe what makes him a good coach,” Baker said. “If you could, there might be more like him.”

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.