Anchors Aweigh

Race Referee Clifford ("Tip") Goes shouted: "Ready all, row!" and 88 lean crewmen bent to it, pulling their lightweight (250 lbs.) toothpick shells in surging spurts over Syracuse's Lake Onondaga. It was the golden jubilee race of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, once known as the Poughkeepsie Regatta, later shifted from the Hudson River to the Ohio (at Marietta), and now settled at Syracuse, out of reach of floods.

Choppy waters and 15-knot quartering winds delayed the starts of the freshman and junior varsity races. But when they were finally run off, the flashing blue & gold oars of the Navy shells crossed the finish line first. The Navy plebes broke the two-mile course record by more than half a minute. The Navy junior varsity missed the three-mile varsity record by only 6.3 seconds. Then it was up to the varsity, stroked by lanky (6 ft. 2 in., 178 lbs.) Sophomore Ed Stevens, to duplicate the "sweep of the river" achieved only by the West Coast's perennial powerhouse, Washington.

Right from the start, Navy's powerful sweepswingers made it clear they intended to get in front and stay there. At the mile mark, pulling at a 28-a-minute beat, the Navy shell was pulling away from the eleven-crew field, led second-place Princeton by a length and a half. Upping the beat to 31, Navy had a two-length lead at the 25-mile mark. In the final 200 yards, with a disdainful sprint, Navy increased its winning margin by another full length. Helped a bit by a tailwind, Navy was timed at 15:08.1. Previous course record, set by Cornell: 15:31. Also rans: Princeton, Cornell, Wisconsin, California, Columbia, Washington, Stanford, Pennsylvania, M.I.T., Syracuse.

Navy's sweep now makes the middies a red-hot favorite for next week's final Olympic trials to be held at Worcester (Mass.), with Yale and Harvard (see below) plus other independent rowing clubs joining in an effort to upset Navy. If the middies win, they will be the first Eastern crew to represent the U.S. in the Olympics since 1924. But win or lose, last week's sweep was a particularly happy day for Navy's Rusty Callow, dean of crew coaches. A year ago on the turbulent Ohio, in Callow's first year at Annapolis, all three Navy shells sank, in a disaster referred to as "the little Pearl Harbor."

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