The Sleeper & the Storm

Since 1935 Yale's oarsmen had come off second-best in the annual race against Harvard. Again last week it seemed that nothing but a bolt from the Old Blue could awaken the light (170-lb.) Yale crew to whip rugged (184-lb.) and unbeaten Harvard--and there was not a thundercloud in sight when the two boats lined up at 7 p.m. on Connecticut's Thames River.

For a mile and a half along the four-mile course, Harvard oarsmen noted with some surprise that the Eli shell was still even with them. The surprise deepened as Yale, rowing with a power and rhythm it had not shown all season, forged ahead and in the last half mile stood off a desperate Harvard challenge, to win by one-third of a boat-length and break the upstream record (in 19:52 4/5 ). After his boys had ended the 13-year famine, Yale's Coach Allen Walz jumped overboard from his launch, clothes and all, and broke some other kind of record swimming to the shell to shake the winning hands.

Next day, in the second of the week's classic crew races, a different kind of lightning struck at Poughkeepsie. Twelve of the nation's crack crews (excepting Yale and Harvard) waited as a violent thunderstorm lashed the Hudson valley. Lightning struck the railroad bridge near the finish line, hit the mast of a Coast Guard observation craft. When the three-mile varsity race began (an hour and ten minutes behind schedule), things settled down to normal. Washington, 1948's Poughkeepsie winner, and California, last year's Olympic champion, had their own private duel for first place. The winner: California, by two-thirds of a length. Trailing behind, the outclassed eastern oarsmen put on another duel for third place, with Cornell winning out over Navy and Princeton.

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