A Newsletter for MIT Crew Alumni

Fall 2008

Director’s MessageBy Tony Kilbridge

This fall marks the beginning of my third year at MIT and of the concerted effort by our coaches, administrators and alumni leader-ship to make MIT’s crews competi-tive with their league rivals. These efforts are starting to pay off. The sense of positive momentum and energy in the Pierce Boathouse is unmistakable. Last year we assem-bled a first-rate team of coaches, all of whom have returned for the ’08-’09 campaign. Our squad sizes are improved from last season, and much improved from two years ago. While it is too early to say how things will look in the spring, MIT crew currently comprises about 160 athletes. The boathouse is a happy and smoothly function-ing (if crowded and noisy) place.

MIT’s new athletic director, Julie Soriero, is solidly in our corner, and has cleared away several obstacles to our performance. As always, our alumni support has been outstanding.

Our race results from last spring were a significant improvement over those of the recent past. The men’s lightweight and heavyweight

Director’s Message 1

Season Reviews:

Heavyweight Men 2

Lightweight Men 3

Openweight Women 4

Lightweight Women 5

Alumni Day 6

2009 Preview 8

Fall Schedule 9

crews both won races against EARC opponents and were voted Crews of the Week in a Row2k national poll. Our freshman heavy-weight men outpaced six crews to make the petite finals at the East-ern Sprints. Our women’s crews were also much improved. (More complete descriptions of our spring ’08 races appear in the “Season Review” section of this issue).

In all, MIT crew enters the ’08-’09 season energized and optimistic. Still, we should not underestimate the task we have set for ourselves. The EARC and EAWRC are the fastest, deepest college rowing leagues in the country. As just one example, Harvard’s winning time in the heavyweight men’s event at the Eastern Sprints in 2007 was 5:27. MIT’s varsity heavies that year went 5:53, and finished last. It was not that long ago that breaking six minutes over 2000 meters was a notable achievement for a college crew. Our competitors have win-ning traditions and a steady stream of strong, experienced recruits. We are in the early stages of a process that will require time, persistent effort and institutional support. We coaches will have to stay positive and find creative ways to maximize the performance of the unusually bright, unusually busy, frequently

sleepy people that are MIT row-ers and coxswains. For us to truly succeed, however, the Institute will have to work with us in allowing us to compete with our rowing rivals for top high school recruits.

I hope you are all looking forward as much as I am to MIT crew’s 2008-2009 campaign. It should be exciting. As always, thank you for your support, and feel free to contact me with questions or com-ments.

Go Tech!

Squaring the blade

Heavyweight MenBy Tony Kilbridge

MIT’s 2008 varsity heavyweight crew continued the solid progress it had begun in 2007, though not without some bumps in the road. The source of those bumps was squad size. The team entered fall ’07 with ten rowers on the roster, and very little margin for error. The athletes did a good job of working hard all year, despite the lack of intra-squad competition. By the end of spring break, Coach Kilbridge had assembled a fast var-sity boat, which opened the season with a 15-second thrashing of Boston College. The following weekend the Engineers traveled to New York to race Columbia and Holy Cross (a new mem-ber of the EARC). The team raced well, beating Holy Cross by two seconds and losing to Columbia by 13 seconds. This was not your father’s Columbia crew. The Lions would go on to be a grand finalist at IRA, finishing ahead of Harvard, Yale and Princeton, among many others.

By this point, the Tech heavies were down to nine men (including one coxswain), having lost a man to academic problems. Immediate-ly following the Columbia trip, the team’s co-captain and bowman was diagnosed with mono. In typical overachieving MIT fashion, he also got pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital for a week of intra-venous antibiotics. Down to seven men, coach Kilbridge brought a freshman up from the first frosh boat. Under league rules, each opposing EARC coach would have

to approve this arrangement before Tech could race.

The team traveled next to Lake Quinsigamond, where they repeat-ed as winners of the Donahue Cup, defeating Williams and WPI by 2.5 seconds and 3.5 seconds, respec-tively. Next up was the Compton Cup, against Harvard and Princ-eton. Tech lacked the speed to stay with these crews, though wakes caused by Princeton steering into MIT’s lane did not help. Tech fin-ished 24 seconds back, feeling that they could have done much bet-ter. Next on the schedule was the Cochrane Cup against Dartmouth

and Wisconsin. Dartmouth refused to waive the no-freshman rule, so MIT missed that race for the first time in many years.

The next day, however, MIT joined Wisconsin’s race against Boston University on the Charles, both those coaches having waived the rule. Wisco was ranked third in the country and took off fast. BU tried to hang with the Badgers, stroking at a 38 for 600 meters. By the time they settled, BU was one length ahead of MIT. Tech kept grinding, took a big move under the Mass Ave. Bridge and caught the Terriers

in front of the MIT boathouse. The Engineers moved to several seats ahead of BU, withstood a deter-mined sprint, and finished second, one second ahead of BU and 11 seconds behind Wisconsin. It was the first time in at least 15 years that MIT had beaten BU. Wiscon-sin would go on to win IRA, as the fastest college crew in the US. The same weekend, Tech’s lightweights beat the University of Pennsyl-vania, leading to both MIT men’s crews being voted “crews of the week” in a Row2k national on-line poll.

The varsity 8 finished its season at the Eastern Sprints. League of-ficials would not allow Tech to row with a freshman in its boat, so Tech’s original bowman returned to his seat, 25 pounds lighter than before he got sick and still unable to breathe normally. The crew needed a miracle to do well under the circumstances, and they did not get it, finishing 18th. MIT’s freshman boat, however, made

a statement about the future, out-pacing six crews to advance to the petite finals.

Coach Kilbridge selected four of his varsity rowers to enter the Var-sity Four With Coxswain event at IRA. History indicated that a time of 6:20 would put the crew in gold medal contention. In their semifi-nal, the Tech crew flew down the course in 6:21, only to find them-selves in a four-way photo finish. Video review revealed that MIT had finished fourth, and would end its season in the petite finals, where it finished 2nd, or 8th overall.

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2008 Varsity Heavyweight Crew

season review

Lightweight MenBy Ted Benford

Coaches consistently look for quotes to inspire their oarsmen. One that comes to mind when reviewing the progress of Men’s Lightweight Crew is credited to John Foster Dulles, who said, “the measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem as last year.” The lightweight men had their share of “problems” (like every worthy endeavor) but they were, in fact, different than previous years.

Winter training and spring conditioning focused on the team’s ability to sustain boat speed for the duration of our 2000m races. This meant changing old racing patterns, most notably the traditional Fly-And-Die strategy. This year our goal was to put together a complete 2000m effort regardless of racing outcome. Our first two races showed how much this would de-mand of every oarsman. At the Joy Cup, MIT raced Yale and George-town for 400 meters before getting dropped as Georgetown tried to run down a superior Yale Varsity. In the end MIT finished only six seconds behind Georgetown who was gassed after getting beaten by Yale in the middle 750m. At the Biglin Bowl, the “wheels came off the train” in the Varsity event as MIT chased Dartmouth and Harvard. The finish of this race was legendary - Dartmouth raised their cadence to nearly 42 strokes per minute in the last 200m to beat

Harvard by 0.05 seconds to reclaim the Biglin Bowl. MIT was well back of this dogfight. A bright spot on the day was gritty racing by the 1F who nearly nipped Dartmouth – a nascent rivalry was borne.

The most encouraging race of the year followed our worst. In New York at the Geiger Cup, MIT estab-lished a solid rhythm that matched sustainable effort. The result was a six second deficit to Cornell and a boat length loss to Columbia in strong tailwind conditions. Fol-lowing this performance, the team traveled to Philadelphia for an

inaugural race against Pennsylva-nia. MIT was able to take advan-tage of a one-length lead going into the turn at the Strawberry Mansion bridge and then sustain its lead over a charging Penn in the final 1100 meters. The Freshmen raced their best to date, only to get outgunned by the Penn Freshmen, finishing four seconds down.

With exams pending and windy practice conditions, the team didn’t hit anticipated training speeds prior to the EARC Sprints. In head-wind conditions at Worcester, MIT

underperformed and lost to Penn by a length to finish 10th. MIT had difficulty developing and then sus-taining a competitive race rhythm. Encouragingly, all three Light-weight Men’s Crews finished in the top ten and the 1F avenged their earlier season loss to Dartmouth.

The Varsity Eight accepted its bid to the IRA. This was the first trip for the MIT Varsity Lightweight Eight to the IRA since 2002. MIT drew a heat with the eventual gold and silver medalists (Cornell and Navy) in addition to Dartmouth and Purdue (Dad Vail winners). In

the heat, the team came out aggressively, but didn’t have the base speed or power to keep up with Cornell, Navy and Dartmouth. In the pe-tite final, MIT and Columbia took control of the race in the first 500m. Columbia “bled” MIT with a little more power per stroke in the body of the race, and once the two boats crossed the 1500 mark Co-lumbia was in control. MIT never let Columbia all the

way through, however, and finished in second place, down a length – a similar finish to the Geiger Cup. Finishing eighth at the IRA was a solid achievement for the team and helped the oarsmen learn more about what it takes to succeed in rowing at the EARC level.

In sum, the 2008 season presented many successes and new prob-lems (read: opportunities!) for this young squad. Through it all, we took another big step toward solv-ing the challenges of becoming stronger and faster. Onward.

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2008 Varsity Lightweight Crew

9

Varsity Heavyweight MenFreshmen Heavyweight Men

Varsity Lightweight MenFreshmen Lightweight Men

Varsity Openweight WomenNovice Openweight Women

Varsity Lightweight WomenNovice Lightweight Women

New Hampshire Championships

Head of the Charles

Princeton Chase

Dartmouth Green Monster

Foot of the Charles

October 11

October 18-19

October 26

November 1

November 15

Tony KilbridgeEvan Thews-Wassell

Ted BenfordAndrew Hilton

Holly MetcalfAaron Benson

Claire KostrzewskiAmelia Booth

Edited by Aaron BensonPhotos by DSPics & Gerrit Zwart