Depth Buoys Harvard Men’s Crew

The Harvard University Boat Club’s 2010-2011 season was bookended by two-second losses to the University of Washington.

After an 8.5-second margin of victory in the Head of the Charles’ Championship Eight event opened this season, the Crimson has to be hoping for another symmetrical finish.

Last year, Harvard and UW came into Camden, N.J., for the season’s final challenge with undefeated 1V records, and although the Crimson drew first blood with a semifinal win at Washington’s expense, the Huskies still came out on top.

I can’t tell you that Harvard will run the tables this year, complete its second Sprints-Henley double in three years, and give Harry Parker a well-deserved 50th anniversary present of an IRA victory.

But as the fall season comes to a close and the team heads towards a long winter indoors, I can’t imagine a group more motivated.

With legendary coach Harry Parker battling cancer, motivation to win for him is higher than ever—if that’s even possible. Certainly, the senior class deserves high praise for its leadership as well. Two years ago, five sophomores—Pat Lapage, Matt Edstein, Nick Jordan, Sam O’Connor, and Mike DiSanto—made it into the first varsity eight, and the boat won both Eastern Sprints and the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley Royal Regatta.

Not all of these seniors are currently competing in the 1V this year, but the class of 2012 has embodied the work ethic and dedication on which the whole team prides itself.

You could certainly say Harvard’s success has a lot to do with the talents of its top rowers, many of whom have experience competing for their respective national teams. Just this past summer, Lapage and sophomore standout Andy Holmes earned a bronze medal at the U23 World Championships while competing with the Great Britain men’s eight. Closer to home, DiSanto stroked the U.S. four to the A final.

But whenever I spoke to DiSanto, now the team’s captain, after one of the team’s many victories last year, he talked about the team’s motivation coming “from the bottom up.” This past weekend, Lapage used the exact same phrase.

Lapage has been the stroke of the 1V since his sophomore year, and even he speaks of the need to fight for his seat. Junior James O’Connor, another one of the Crimson’s top rowers, expressed a similar concern.

“We’re all fighting tooth and nail,” he said after Saturday’s Tail of the Charles, which he, Lapage, and Holmes won while rowing with junior rower Josh Hicks and junior coxswain David Fuller.

Regardless of any desire to win Sprints, Henley, and IRA gold, the rowers are also motivated by a recognition of the talent on the entire team.

Because truly, no one’s seat is safe this year.

Last spring, the Crimson Sports Board named Parker runner-up to Coach of the Year, and when I was interviewing him for a 400-word article that in no way encapsulated his greatness, one of the first things he talked about was the team’s depth.

“One of the contributing factors is the fellows [who] have stayed with the program, whether they’ve been in the first crew or the second or the third,” he said.

Similarly, at the two Head of the Charles banquets I’ve attended, the first thing Parker has done is to call the members of the third and fourth varsity eights to stand up so their accomplishments can be recognized.

While covering the team last year, I watched the fourth varsity eight walk away from Princeton’s 3V, and Harvard’s 3V maintain overlap with its own 2V. Just this past weekend, the Crimson’s E four took sixth overall, ahead of its own C and D fours as well as Brown’s B four.

The determination of non-1V/2V rowers has kept the entire team on its toes and will continue to do so this winter.

When 1V and 2V rowers attribute their own successes to rowers in the 3V and 4V, it’s not to be nice.

It’s a statement of fact.

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