By John Powers, Globe Staff, 6/12/2004

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- All around Red Top, Harvard's expansive rowing headquarters by the Thames River, are reminders of what its alma mater calls "the age that is past." Framed photographs of unbeaten varsities, books filled with lore, names of oarsmen long dead scribbled inside the clothing cabinets at the dorms. For every Crimson varsity that arrives here at season's end, the challenge is unspoken but unmistakable: Where is your place among all this?

Now comes a crew that has set the school's sports information people to rummaging through the archives to find the last one with similar accomplishments: back-to-back national championships by open water, two Eastern Sprints titles (also by open water), 17 straight regular-season victories, all but four of them by open water.

Not since the "Rude and Smooth" era of the mid-'70s has there been a Crimson boat to match what this one has achieved, Saturday after Saturday. Yet the question remains: How good are these guys?

Good enough that they're heading for Switzerland next week on the way to next month's Henley Royal Regatta to pull on red-white-and-blue jerseys and compete against some of the world's best national boats (including the probable US Olympic eight) in the World Cup in Lucerne.

"They're curious to see," says coach Harry Parker, whose last crew to test the top international waters was the 1968 boat that made the Olympic final. "As are other people."

This afternoon, though, comes a final bit of domestic business -- the 139th 4-mile pull against archrival Yale, which Harvard is expected to win by multiple lengths, as it has for the last four years and most of the last 40. "It's just another piece of the puzzle that we want to do right," says captain Alexander Chastain-Chapman (a.k.a. "Cha-Cha").

That 19-minute chore won't be as easy as it might have seemed when the season began in March. After the Bulldogs finished ninth at the Sprints, second-year coach John Pescatore shook up his boat, moving captain Andrew Brennan all the way back to bow and installing sophomore Matthew Brown at stroke.

The new lineup was decidedly faster, missing the Intercollegiate Rowing Association finals by just half a second and winning the petite final. Fast enough to give Yale hope that it can make a race of it today. "Any race can be won or lost by any crew," muses Pescatore. "It's a mental sport."

Still, it would be an upset for the ages if the Bulldogs were to win. Harvard, which has claimed 17 of the last 19 races and 38 of the last 45, has six men back from last year's boat that won by the biggest margin (nearly 50 seconds) in 92 years. Yale has nobody in the varsity that has ever taken a crimson shirt.

"We're going to be judged on our last race," acknowledges Harvard stroke Kip McDaniel. "If we lose [today], we're not going to be considered one of the greatest crews. We recognize that."

If McDaniel and his mates win, though, they go up alongside the 1974-75-76 boats, the last to post consecutive unbeaten seasons. "Just on the basis of their record, it puts them in the league with the best crews we've ever had," says Parker.

Parker has had so many superb varsities during his 42-year tenure that they morph into eras -- the five unbeaten crews between 1964-68, the 1974-76 boats that won three straight unofficial national titles, the 1983-89 varsities that earned five official ones. While he's loath to compare them, it's clear that Parker regards this one as something special.

"Almost dominant," he observed last weekend, after the Crimson had rowed away from Washington and California at the IRA championships in Camden, N.J. That's as close to irrational exuberance as Parker permits himself to come, and it was duly noted by his oarsmen, who closely parse his utterances for larger meaning. "He's like the Alan Greenspan of rowing," says McDaniel. "We hang on every word he says."

Dominant, particularly, are McDaniel and his fellows from the Class of 2004, who took their diplomas two days ago. Twelve of them (plus cox Jesse Oberst) have seats in the first two boats, six in each, which likely is a school record.

That made for brutal competition all fall and winter around Newell Boathouse. "Nobody was sure who'd be in the varsity boat until April," says Parker. "If they slip up, they're not going to be there."

What emerged was not one but three superb eights. The Crimson junior varsity, which won all of its dual races and the Sprints by open water, finished second to Washington at the national championships and is also Henley-bound. "They could have made the varsity final," observes McDaniel. The third varsity, stocked with last year's excellent freshmen, also went unbeaten (except against the JV as an added starter) and won the Sprints.

Any other year, several of the JVs might have made the big boat. "I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been a little bit frustrating," concedes Chastain-Chapman, who has rowed on the JV for three years. "But everyone in the JV realizes it's been a unique time for Harvard rowing."

What sets this varsity apart is not so much its record as its attitude. "They're very businesslike," says Parker. "Pretty quiet, pretty confident. At least so far, there's never been a question as to whether they're ready to go."

The Crimson may not be the fastest boat out of the gate, but nobody is their equal in the middle 1,000 meters. "That's where we're asking the other crews the question they hopefully can't answer," says McDaniel. "We just attack and keep attacking and keep attacking."

So Harvard will again today, daring Yale to hang with it all the way from the bridge to Bartlett's Cove. The Bulldogs, who haven't won an upstream race since 1984, say they're game. They'll have to be, if they want to finish in the same photograph with Harvard. "What I learned last year," says Pescatore, "is that it [stinks] to be really far behind."

The Crimson oarsmen, who haven't lost since the 2002 Sprints (to Wisconsin), say they'd love a bow-to-bow race. "The competitive part of you wants to have one of the great duels," says McDaniel. More likely, they'll get it next week at Lucerne, where Parker took his 1965 varsity, which won there and ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "The World's Best Crew."

This Harvard boat has no such illusions. "We don't expect to win, but we think we can be competitive," says McDaniel, whose father, Brian, stroked the 1967 Canadian crew that lost to Harvard at the Pan American Games and missed out on the Olympics. "Go after them and give them a race. Have a little fun, cause a little trouble. We have nothing to lose."

This story ran on page F1 of the Boston Globe on 6/12/2004.
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