| Harvard sweeps Yale for fourth straight year
By John Powers, Globe Staff, 6/13/2004 NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Tomorrow, they'll step on a plane and head for Switzerland to take on the rest of the world. After yesterday afternoon, there's simply nobody left on this side of the pond for Harvard's heavyweight crew to beat. "This is the topping on the cake," said stroke Kip McDaniel, after the undefeated Crimson overpowered archrival Yale by more than 6 lengths in 18 minutes 42.1 seconds (the fourth-fastest time ever) in their 139th 4-miler on the choppy, sloppy Thames River, sweeping the regatta for the fourth straight year. "Now, we get to go and see what we can do." What they've done this year and last -- two perfect seasons with national titles -- no Harvard crew has managed since the "Rude 'n' Smooth" era in 1974-76. That was what the Class of 2004 set out to achieve when they first walked into Newell Boathouse. "Ever since we got here, we wanted to restore Harvard rowing to what it was, when it was rare to get your hands on a Harvard shirt," said bowman Jonathan Durham, whose classmates have lost only once (to Wisconsin at the 2002 Eastern Sprints) in three years. Now that they've done that, the next step is the fast lane -- this week's World Cup in Lucerne, where the Crimson will race as USA 2 against their fellow Americans, the world champion Canadians, the Germans, the Australians, and almost everyone else who'll be chasing Olympic gold in Athens. Then it's on to the Henley Royal Regatta, where Harvard likely will enter the Grand Challenge Cup, which it last won in 1985. "We're the upstarts now, and we like that a lot," said McDaniel, whose mates won all but one race this year by open water. "We haven't been the upstarts for quite a while." Certainly not in the 4-miler, which Harvard has won five straight times (for the first time since 1995), 18 of 20, and 39 of 46. Had Yale won yesterday, it would have been an upset for the ages. The Bulldogs, who are back on the rise under second-year coach John Pescatore, would have been delighted to win even one of the three races yesterday. Their best chance came in the 2-miler, where their freshmen hung with Henley-bound Harvard all the way and lost by only a length. With that race in hand, a fourth straight sweep was all but assured for the first time since 1975. The Crimson JV, who'll also be at Henley, had open water half a mile into their 3-miler and won by 30 seconds. After last year's 50-second dunking, their worst defeat in 92 years, the Yale varsity was determined to make a respectable showing. So the Bulldogs jumped Harvard at the start and were within a quarter of a length at the half-mile flag. "Harvard is exceptional this year," said Pescatore. "To be able to stay side by side with them for the first three minutes is not easy." Nor was it possible, not after the Crimson went into cruising gear and had open water at a mile, and 3 lengths before the midway point. Other years, that would have been the prelude to a 10-length laugher. Not this time. So Yale hung in, even after Harvard brought the hammer down in the third mile, and made it the closest race since 2000, when the Crimson won by 10 seconds. Had the conditions been better, the Crimson easily would have shattered the upstream record (18:41.9) set by the 1995 crew. As it was, they missed by just two-10ths of a second. "It's a pretty impressive group," said Harvard coach Harry Parker, whose record against Yale is 36-6. "It's clear they didn't want to let this one get away from them." If it had, the Class of 2004 would have been remembered by the old boys as the one that lost The Boat Race. Now, it goes up with the best Harvard has ever put on the water. Now comes their summer fling. The day when the Harvard varsity could go to the Olympics, as it did in 1968, is over. But it's still welcome to grab oars and passports and take on the world's best. "Now," said Durham, "we get to be the underdogs." This story ran on page C14 of the Boston Globe on 6/13/2004.
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