4 June 2024
By Göran R Buckhorn
In the evening of Thursday, 23 May, rowing enthusiasts, including some local rowing dignitaries, gathered at The United Theatre in Westerly, Rhode Island, to celebrate “The Race” – short for the Yale–Harvard Regatta (or if you have a Crimson affiliation, the Harvard–Yale Regatta) – which this year will be the 157th run since it was first rowed in 1852. The race will be held on Saturday, 8 June, on the Thames River in New London, Connecticut. As usual, the regatta will have four races, for 4 Varsity, 3 Varsity, 2 Varsity and 1 Varsity.
The two speakers at The United Theatre were Yale’s legendary coach Steve Gladstone, who on 16 May turned 83, and the National Rowing Foundation Director Bill Miller, famed rowing historian.
After coaching Yale for 13 years, Gladstone retired as the Bulldogs’ coach last season. That evening Gladstone talked about different aspects of training crews, something he has done for more than 50 years. Questions came from the audience about how he picked out the crew for The Race, seat racing and much more.
With the help of slide shows, Bill Miller talked about two things: the races during the first 20 years, 1852-1872, and the 1869 Great International University Boat Race between Harvard and Oxford on the River Thames in London, England. Miller asserted that this race in London is the most important race in American rowing history as the interest it received in the USA became a real boom for the founding of rowing clubs at colleges and in cities and towns in the country.
The event at the “United” was organized by the theatre together with Stonington Community Rowing, Inc., (SCRI), the crew program at Stonington High School, which during the school year rows out from the docks at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic. However, the Stonington crews are hoping to launch their boats from their own boathouse on the Mystic River next year.
This project started almost ten years ago when SCRI, together with the town of Stonington, acquired a plot of land just north of Mystic Seaport Museum on Greenmanville Avenue to be called the Mystic River Boathouse Park.
The project encountered several obstacles during the years, not least when the pandemic hit which brought everything to a standstill. But now when all paperwork is in order, it is estimated that the first shovel will be put in the ground this fall, SCRI President Mike O’Neill told HTBS at the reception following Gladstone’s and Miller’s talks. In the park will be the Jim Dietz Rowing Center, which will include the Hart Perry Boathouse.
“It is not a complicated structure,” O’Neill said. “The structure and the park will be finished next spring.”
In the room for the reception, Mystic Seaport Museum’s curatorial staff had created a display of rowing artifacts from the Museum’s collection. There was one showcase for Yale and one for Harvard. On display were also two oars from the collection of the National Rowing Foundation. Both oars came from two winning Harvard crews, 1931 and 1933.
This was the second “rowing event” organized by the United and the SCRI at the theatre. The first event was held in January this year when Jim Pocock, Jr., grandson of Dick Pocock, the brother of George Pocock, shared some stories about his boatbuilding family and gave some insights into the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic crew.
The January event was filmed by the organizers, but the talks on Thursday, 23 May, were unfortunately not. Nevertheless, being early to the event, this reporter took a front seat and tried to film the whole show – I am afraid with mixed results. I ran into some major technical problems uploading the clips on YouTube, probably due to its length. They are now on a so-called playlist, each “scene” loading before starting, I apologize.
In the video, the audience are welcomed by Executive Director of The United Theatre, Carly Callahan, while John Thornell, Girls Head Coach of Stonington Crew and Director of Rowing, SCRI, is introducing Gladstone and Miller.