Harvard Lightweights Get Lucky with ’13s

Depth. Experience. Hunger. Talent. Success. Potential. The Lucky ’13s seem to have everything—except Eastern Sprints gold. After checking off everything on its to-do list except that final accomplishment, all nine members of last year’s first lightweight freshman eight have returned to Newell Boathouse emboldened by their success and fueled by the one blemish on an otherwise stainless season.

Joining them on their quest is a group of walk-ons who’d never handled an oar before arriving in Cambridge and taking a seat on last year’s 2F boat.

The sophomore class, nicknamed the “Lucky ’13s” by Harvard lightweight freshman coach Linda Muri, is the first in her nine-year tenure to return its entire 1F and 2F lineups from the year before. Both boats took silver at EARC Sprints in May.

“That has to be the best combined record in my time here,” Muri says.

The success started last fall when the Harvard 1F won the Princeton Chase, took fourth in the Club Eight—a heavyweight event—at the Head of the Charles, and then won the Tail of the Charles.

“They seemed to really get along very well from the first day on move-in,” Muri says. “They stood on the dock in a huge circle and talked for a while.”

That closeness continued to translate into on-the-water success in the spring, when, according to Muri, the 1F went undefeated in the dual season for the first time since 1979 before finally falling to Princeton in the finals of Eastern Sprints.

Now on the varsity team, the nine from that first freshman boat have wasted little time making an impact—no small accomplishment given that the lightweight varsity eight also finished its dual season unbeaten.

“It’s been really competitive,” sophomore Erich Schultze says. “It’s really exciting to be able to push the juniors and seniors. I think because of the depth we have...it can make all the boats in the program better.”

“They will definitely impact the team for the next three years,” Muri concurs. “We’ll see a lot [of them] in the 1V and 2V.”

With all nine of the 2F returning, the sophomore impact won’t be limited to the 1F alums alone.

“The 2F definitely got some good results,” Schultze says. “More than the results, we really got close with them. They bought into what it was to be part of the team. They really enjoyed it, saw a lot of value in it.”

Hoping to bring the walk-ons closer with the recruits last year, Muri paired each recruit with a novice rower and found the effort to be quite successful.

“That core group was very welcoming of the novice guys,” Muri recalls. “I think the [pair] that was the most surprising was Arturo Villanueva and James Groeneveld. Somehow they really hit it off in a way that was entertaining and just eye-opening.”

The bond between the Texan walk-on and the Australian recruit was just one example of the cohesiveness of last year’s freshman class. That kind of closeness translated into competitiveness on the water.

“We took a lot of inspiration from the recruits,” says Simon Maas, a walk-on who rowed in the bow seat of the 2F. “[There was] a strong team atmosphere, a sense of inter-competition, but we always knew we were competing with each other, not against each other.”

The 2F thrived in the competition, falling only to Yale and Navy in the dual season. In its biggest race of the year, the boat bit the Bulldogs back, taking second to Navy at Eastern Sprints.

“It showed that we had improved and had desire for a little bit more,” Maas says. “We were fueled [by the loss to Yale]. It was really nice to come back from that and get the silver medal at Sprints.”

And according to Muri, the 2F’s impact cannot be measured by its record alone.

“[The success of the team] had to do with having that strong group of guys in the 2F pushing that strong group of guys in the 1F,” Muri says.

Now in their second year rowing on the Charles, the walk-ons are facing their next big challenge: competing for seats in one of the top lightweight programs in the country.

“It’s an entirely different pool,” Maas says. “It’s a lot more inspirational being amongst [the varsity] guys. It says a lot about the program that you can pick up a sport and then next year be competing against guys who row for their respective national teams and are some of the best rowers in the country, at least at the collegiate level.”

While Maas and his fellow walk-ons may not have matched the level of the national team rowers quite yet, their talent and motivation have their coaches optimistic about their futures on the squad.

“I think they’re just going to be coming into their own,” Muri says. “They’re going to continue to surprise themselves. They need some more time, some more miles. This is going to be the start of what they can do.”

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