Penn Second Freshman Lightweights (after the Columbia race, April 25, 1964) Bow Bill DeVasher, 2 Pat McCardle, 3 Pete Mallory, 4 Steve Fuerst, 5 Martin Dominguez, 6 John Hetherington, 7 Dennis Custage, Stroke Rich Fogler, Coxswain Randy Owens

"Hurrah... Hurrah... Hurrah... Hurrah...
Hurrah for the Red and the Blue!"
- University of Pennsylvania school song

"CORNELL, CORNELL, B. M. A."
- Cornell Crew cheer

Back to 1964 in Ithaca. My old Kent classmate Chris Williams explains to me that B.M.A. stands for "Best Men Afloat". I am impressed. Penn may have a marvelous school song, a couple of great songs in fact, but we cannot match the Cornell Crew cheer. (Years later I will discover that "Best Men Afloat" is perhaps the only family-friendly of the several B.M.A. translations known to every Cornell rower.)

Funny thing about Cornell University. I told you I was accepted at Cornell. I intended to be an architect back then, so I'd applied to the three best architecture programs in the country: Yale, Cornell and Penn. Wait-listed at Yale, admitted to the other two. Never quite warmed to Yale, to the consternation of my Yale-educated father, no particular reason I can point you to today, but probably because of my Yale-educated father. I had already tried following in his footsteps at Kent, and look where that had gotten me.

Loved the other two colleges when I visited their campuses. But they were so different: Cornell an undergraduate architecture program, Penn in graduate school, Cornell small town, Penn big city, on and on, back and forth, I couldn't decide.

Finally, it occurred to me. I was weenie. All my life I had been picked last on the playground. Little kids stole my lunch money, kicked sand in my face. I would be lucky to finally get up to 120 pounds with rocks in my pockets by the time I got to college! No way could I make the Lightweight Crew at Cornell. Real lightweights didn't look like me! They were tall, strong 150-pounders, not short, scrawny 110-pounders, and Cornellians were the absolute best lightweights in the country! The best! And so I chose Penn . . . under the assumption they were crappy enough that I actually might have a chance to make their squad! And a great choice it turned out to be, a stupendous choice in fact . . . but what a horrendous thought process, horrendous mindset! Imagine my shame! Imagine my relief at my good fortune!

But all that decision-making has been completely forgotten as I fidget at the start line on Cayuga Lake. Awaiting the commands from the officials, I am supremely confident, conveniently ignoring not only Cornell's continuing supremacy in collegiate lightweight rowing but also the fact that my Penn boat has yet to execute more than thirty strokes in a row at race pace, even in practice! . . . and ignoring the fact that I am the only member of my crew to have even sat in a shell before six months ago, and that was as a coxswain.

I don't tell Chris Williams this, but I was still a coxswain just a month ago when my body finally decided to begin filling out. And now, instead of steering and sitting right in front of the 8-man, the stroke-oar, the rower who sets the pace for all the rest of us, I am manning the oar right behind him. I can even whisper in his ear . . . that is, if I were the whispering type. I am the backbone of the crew. I am the 7-man! A MAN, no longer a boy, come of age this very day, the hand of proud Odysseus resting comfortably on my shoulder, the strength of Ajax coursing through my body.

The officials line up the two boats. I feel something warm. I look down. There is a wet spot slowly spreading from the center of my shorts.

"Are you ready?... Row!"

Our stroke man is Rich Fogler, from Toronto, Ontario, who eats fast and diets hard. He didn't eat for what seemed like a week to make weight, and back at the dock I noticed his eyes still had that crazed look of a religious zealot. "Fogie" takes us off the line at 44 strokes per minute . . . or so I was told later. Now normally we can't even count that high, let alone row that high, but in our God-like state it feels just fine to me.

I sneak a look over to the other boat. I am still even with my counterpart, the Cornell 7-man - the aforementioned Bob Holman, I can report today with the advantage of hindsight. Apparently, we haven't yet taken the lead. Hmm! I guess our worthy opponents are actually going to make us earn this fine first win of the year, this first win of our college careers, the first win of my entire rowing career!

Jimmy Beggs, our Freshman Coach, hasn't made the trip. He has stayed home with the Freshman Heavies, so we lightweights are on our own. Observers in the launch remark that Cornell has settled to a very sensible and conservative 29 strokes per minute, Penn to a seldom-seen 41. "Fascinating contrast of approaches," they muse. "Isn't there a story," one remarks, "a story about a Japanese crew that once rowed a whole race at 40 . . . and didn't they all die of heart attacks or something?" (A rowing urban legend, one of many, as I am destined to find out later.) "Perhaps these young Penn fellows will get a lesson in history today." The group sagely murmurs its agreement as the boats proceed down the course . . . or so I was told later.

Back within our own boat we are oblivious as we fast approach the Anaerobia County line. The next time I look over, I am no longer even with my colleague in 7 but with their stroke-oar, and so now we must be a seat behind. A bit later it's two. Cornell seems to be just i-n-c-h-i-n-g away. Hmm! Everything is happening . . . in . . . slow . . . motion. Hey! Is that pain in my lungs? I can't describe it. I don't want to describe it! Are we even halfway done yet? Now I have to turn my head further and further to even catch a glimpse of the Cornell rudder. What's that? Could the stroke rate be faltering?

"Keep it up, Fogie!" I exclaim supportively. "Keep it up, Fogie!"

I look over at the shore as we seem to just crawl by cozy cottages. Now, when I turn my head, I have forgotten all about the other boat. All I care about is the finish line. "A mile and five". Where the HELL is it?

[musical interlude]

It is now Monday afternoon back in Philadelphia. After class, as we head to practice my lungs still ache. Two whole days later! Imagine that! Coach Beggs asks us how the race went. The bow man bursts out, "We lost by five lengths! We must have rowed the entire race at 40 with Pete yelling all the way, "TAKE IT UP, FOGIE! TAKE IT UP, FOGIE!"

Gentleman Jim Beggs, one of the two men in my lifetime to coach regularly in a three-piece suit, nods thoughtfully . . . and switches me way back in the boat, where presumably I can no longer give Fogie such advice. Good fortune for all of us! Our very next race is with Columbia on the Harlem River . . . and we win! Oh my!

That's the good news. The bad news is that this is the only time during the entire year of 1964 that any Penn crew at any level crosses the finish line in first place. Anywhere! Oh my!

And now three decades have passed. My thoughts return to 1995, and I am hiking beside a guy who has almost forgotten our day in 1964 sitting for a short time side-by-side on Lake Cayuga.

All collegiate crew races in America end in a shirt bet, winner take all, and the shirt Bob Holman won from me that day has long ago turned to dust. And, get this, he never rowed another stroke after his freshman year. Had his fill. Left the family of oarsmen, concentrated on his studies or something, kicked my a** and moved on. Isn't life grand?

As for me, I would keep going . . . through college . . . after college . . . through decades of rowing and coaching and rowing and coaching again. Here I am still writing about it in 2022.

And recently, for two years I and my son, Philip, a third-generation rower, coached side by side at Loyola Marymount University. We mentored each other. Isn't life grand?

To be continued . . .