Men’s Crew Shines at Head of the Charles Regatta

When the Harvard Varsity Club presented Harry Parker with its highest honor, the Varsity Club Award, on Friday night, it probably suspected that Parker would add to his coaching lore before the weekend was finished.

And with some help from his lightweight counterpart, Charley Butt, Parker didn’t disappoint. In the 46th Head of the Charles Regatta, the Crimson won the MacMahon Regatta Cup Trophy, which is annually awarded to the school or club that wins the most total points at the regatta.

The two Harvard squads tend to trade places as the higher-ranked team, but it was the heavyweights that led the way this weekend. The Crimson heavyweights’ first varsity eight raced its way to a second-place finish in the Championship Eight event, and the heavyweights also secured a win in the Club Eight event.

Harvard’s top varsity eight finished less than two seconds behind the winning crew from the University of Washington, despite clashing oars with a Penn Athletic Club crew right in front of Newell Boat House.

“I had mixed feelings,” said junior Nick Jordan, six seat of the first varsity boat. “I was very excited about how we did but also fairly frustrated with not winning it, because we were so close.”

The Crimson had been assigned bow No. 15 but ended up starting 13th, right behind Penn AC. Harvard continued to pick up seats on the Penn AC boat throughout the first half of the race, but the squad from Philadelphia hadn’t allowed the Crimson to take the lead before passing its own boathouse. After having taken the outside of the Anderson Bridge turn, though, Harvard had put itself in good position to pass Penn AC before Eliot Bridge. Positioned on the Boston side of its Pennsylvania counterpart, the Crimson thought it had secured the inside of the turn. But Penn AC refused to yield.

“They were trying to cut it as tight as possible,” Jordan said. “We were being pushed into the buoy. We were getting dangerously close to over the buoys. That’s why we ended up clashing oars.”

When it finally had space, Harvard quickly moved through its opponent, finishing two or three lengths ahead. But the clashing of oars may have cost the Crimson its title.

“This isn’t the end-all, be-all,” Jordan said. “It’s a good yard stick to see if we’re on pace, on course. From what we saw, it was encouraging to see that we can hang with the best crews in the country. We sort of need to keep working, keep on it, see what the spring brings. But I did really want to win it. We were so close.”

The club eight event had no such controversy; Harvard won the event by nearly 25 seconds.

“I thought the team’s performance was really impressive overall,” said senior Ben French, who rowed in the six-seat of the winning Club Eight. “Pretty much every boat had a really good race, and I was very happy to see such strong results across the board. The champ eight today had a really awesome race, and my boat on Saturday had a great race as well. It was incredible and a lot of fun.”

Not to be left out of the fun, the lightweight squad also found its way to the medal dock.

The team’s top two eights finished third and fourth among lightweight eights, while its four took ninth in the lightweight four event. The lightweights’ club eight entry took 25th in the heavyweight event.

“Although our boat didn’t do quite as well as we wanted—I thought we had the strength to win it going in, and that was our goal—I think that we had a great showing overall that reflected the depth of our team,” said captain Will Newell, who stroked the Crimson’s top lightweight eight. “Our top two eights performed well, as did our varsity four and our eight that competed in the club event [Saturday].

“All in all, we had a very deep performance from the team overall,” he added. “Harvard as a whole won the men’s overall points trophy, so even though our performance wasn’t exactly where we wanted it, we are going to go back to training really hard, and right now we are in a great position in that our top two eights are faster than any other eight in the league except Princeton and Cornell’s top eights. So, although we didn’t perform on the top end necessarily where we wanted to be, we are at a really great place going forward.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.