‘It’s a Rower Thing’

“I met Karl Kozak at a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, where we shared the same role in sales management for a company specializing in liquid-level measurement for boilers and other industrial vessels. Karl covered the western United States; I covered the Northeast. Karl was a U.S.Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1963. I was Syracuse University Class of 1980. Seventeen years separated us, but the age difference quickly melted away when we discovered we both were rowers.

“It was early in our friendship that Karl announced that he and two other crews won the same race, the varsity lightweight men’s eight in 1962, on Lake Quinsigamond at the Eastern Sprints in Worcester, Massachusetts. Karl was in the “engine room,” sitting in six seat. Needless to say, I was amazed that a three-way tie took place and impressed that Karl was in one of the boats. As the story goes, the officials were going to do the race over to determine a winner. The athletes challenged a do-over, and the rest is history. Three winners were declared.

“Upon graduation, Karl qualified for nuclear submarines that patrol the North Atlantic. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Sculpin, a fast-attack submarine. He’s in chemotherapy treatment now for cancer.

“It’s a rower thing, I suppose, but he and I call each other by our seat number. I was the bowman of the 1978 Syracuse IRA-champion varsity eight, so I became No. 1. He is No. 6. It’s a rower thing. After 25 years, it’s more than friendship. We have bonded like brothers.”

It isn’t unusual that deep, lasting friendships are formed in shells on and off the water. Most of the time these happen between rowers who have been in the same boat or on the same team. But at times, this bond that Gerry Henwood speaks of happens between competitors.

Todd Jesdale, who coached the U.S. junior (now called U19) eight that won a gold medal said, “I think of a wonderful friendship that developed with Arno Siemes, the six man in the German youth eight in 1992. I was poking around to try to discover how those boys developed such fine sportsmanship and found Arno, the only one who was not from the former East Germany and who could speak English.

“We were in contact for a long time; he visited with us in Cincinnati for a month or so—great for getting boats off the top racks. More and more, one sees high-level athletes hugging after the games, certainly a recognition that we are in it together. That seems greatly advanced over the cheap emotions we had in the old days, a real statement about competition being “between” and “with,” as in “a race with.” As opposed to “against.” “With” goes both ways.”

I had contacted Jesdale because he also happened to be a witness to that 1962 race, as he was coaching the freshmen lights at Cornell. Coaching in an era when we have access to photo-finish equipment, (in 2009, Doctor Rowing’s school crew missed the gold medal by .02 of a second; if it had been 1962, it undoubtedly would have been called a dead heat.) Jesdale said: 

“The 1962 race was a real tie. There was a photo, the one you sent, up in the Cornell Boathouse, so I had lots of time to look at it. Soon after, regattas had photo timers, perhaps a loss, rather than a gain, since this remarkable event might now be decided and its lore diminished. That race and other very close races did raise the question of the evenness of the crews at the start. It was much the same when Harvard won the Olympic trials in 1968 by inches. Floating starts or the use of stake boats bouncing around surely made for inequalities there.”

The 1962 three-way tie is unique. Perhaps some alert reader will correct me, but I’ve never heard of another rowing race with a three-way tie for first place. A contemporary account (“the most exciting race at the EARC Sprints”) called it this way:

“Cornell and Navy both led three quarters into the race with MIT only one length behind. In the final stretch, the MIT boat comes from behind to produce the first, and only, three-way tie in EARC Sprints history.”

MIT was renowned for a terrific sprint and clearly had it on that day. It’s unusual in any very close race to find all onlookers agreeing on a finish, but in 1962, absent electronic timing (which would be introduced to rowing in 1964 at the Olympics), the finish-line judges got it as right as they could. It was decided that each college would win three shirts from each of the others. MIT distributed its three Harvard shirts to its three seniors, its three Navies to its juniors, etc.

Hollywood would probably make Kozak and Henwood rivals in the three-way tie, rather than racing 16 years apart. But No. 6 and No. 1’s friendship over 25 years reminds us of the wonderful bonds that rowing creates.