1977 - the year that wasn't, Part Four - Brown and the Saturday Night Sprints

The week before exams saw SU take to the road to race Brown and what was a very strong crew from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. The Varsity continued to improve, making technical refinements that were beginning to pay off. The Seekonk River, always a tough course with wind, tides, and current all working to confuse and confound coxswains, was solved by SU Varsity cox’n Murray Lukoff, as he brought the Orange across the finish over a length in front of Bruno, with Coast Guard another length back. This was a bit of revenge for the Coasties’ three-second win over SU in the JV eight race, with Brown back by just a bit of open water. The freshman from Onondaga made it down the course in fine fashion, dominating both of their opponents to win by over five seconds over Brown. The third varsity and second frosh stayed home, as there weren’t any Brown or Coast Guard entries for them to race.

Things were coming together. The good weather and lots of miles were beginning to show their effect, as both the Varsity and Freshman crews were picking up more speed every week.

Heading into the Sprints, SU’s Varsity was looking strong. The crew was coming together, steadily making the small technical improvements it needed to win. This “technical deficit” hadn’t prevented Drew Harrison’s freshman crews from ever-increasing levels of success; although according to Lyvers, technique wasn’t “the highest priority in Drew’s mind, but from a physical standpoint he really got the most out of a crew.” That was freshman rowing but for the varsity, pure pulling wasn’t enough. On the varsity level, the oarsmen were rowing against more technically proficient crews. Syracuse had to put out more energy to overcome the other crews’ advantage in efficiency. Good enough technique wasn’t good enough when rowing against the likes of Cornell and Harvard, but over the course of the season things were coming along.

In 1977, the Sprints were again held in Princeton, with the Third Varsity and Second Frosh racing off the night before in what was then an informal event that went by the sobriquet “Saturday Night Sprints.” Not an official part of the EARC Championships, this event was organized and put on primarily by the coaches. SU’s second frosh, rowing under a 30 for most of the 2000 meters, finally raised the rating and came charging up on Northeastern in the last 500, but it was too little too late. NU won by less than a half second. SU’s third varsity, stroked by IRA freshman champion Rick Tremblay, rowed a very aggressive race plan and were rewarded with a Sprints Championship and betting shirts from Penn and Harvard. Years later, Tremblay recalled:

“Neil and coach Sanford played significant roles to enable the SU 3rd varsity boat to be Eastern Sprints Champions (Harvard and UPenn were the other entries.)

We decided to go out strong at the beginning of the race to take a significant lead.
Then Neil took over. He made a sharp turn to starboard to cut off Harvard. Harvard couldn’t figure out how to get around us before the finish line. I’m pretty sure we won the race by open water, at least that’s the way I remember it.

Then the most critical part of the race was Coach Sanford convincing Harry Parker to allow our little lane shifting and consider the race legal. Rumor has it Bill treated Harry to a steak dinner later that weekend.”

With Tremblay in the SU third varsity were cox Neil Prete, Dan Hanavan, fellow IRA frosh champion Pete Gaines, Pete Hausman, Andy Papp, Walter MacVittie, Fred Gliesing, and Bill Samios. Hanavan also has great memories of the win. He remembers: “looking over to the shore after the race at the finish line. The SU crew team cheering, wearing the bright orange SU suit jackets !! What style.”