1972 Corsair History

In 1972, NU showed a very strong team was developing.  With only one dual race against BU remaining before the Eastern Sprints, except for a freshman loss to Brown, Northeastern’s teams had won every previous race using boats other than the Corsair. Although the varsity remained undefeated, captain Bill Backman and stroke Calvin Coffey believed the crew would need more speed to contend with the competition they expected to face at Sprints. They urged Coach Arlett to let them try the Corsair.  Bill Backman remembers this developing this way.

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“As the newly elected Captain in 1972, I made it my practice to speak with Ernie either before or after our workouts (and sometimes both) to discuss his goals and or his thoughts for the day. This allowed me to better assist and better encourage the crew in the boat and on land whenever necessary. My goal was to do whatever we had to do as a crew to go faster and become the best we could possibly be at each workout/race that year and '73 as well... Note: I had determined, I was not going to relive the second place finish (by a bow ball) at the '71 IRA's again if I could somehow help do something to prevent it.  In one of our discussions Ernie told me there was an Italian made boat designed to go fast but was very difficult to set up and row that another college crew had rejected because they couldn't master it. He asked if I thought our crew wanted to try the boat out. My response was...Yes, if the boat would help us go faster, we would learn how to do our part to set it up to experience faster times. Ernie was right! The boat was very difficult to row and properly set up at the same time. As a crew, we stayed out longer on the water to do drills just to learn how to lock in the catch and create smooth releases of the oars while intensifying our effort to balance the boat on the slides on both the drive and recovery. All the guys did their individual parts to sense/feel the boat respond to our efforts each practice stroke and ultimately each stroke on race day. The greater our efforts and focused intensity the faster the boat went in practice and races. We were learning how to move the boat better every time we got in it.”

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Calvin Coffey, who stroked the ’72 and ’73 varsity also remembers that decision.  He too asked Ernie about the Donoratico sitting in the boat bay.  As with Bill, this came late in the season.  The only race left before the Sprints was the second race with BU on May 6th, so the timeframe was the first week of May.  Ernie acknowledged to Calvin that it could be a fast boat, but difficult to set up and row properly.  Like Bill, Calvin asked that they give it a go.  The Corsair proved difficult to row, just as advertised, but within days the crew took the Corsair to the Charles River Basin for a 2000-meter time trial and broke the Charles  River course record under good water conditions.  On Saturday they only got past BU by 2.5 secs in rough water conditions, making it clear that more practice was needed.  But this proved that the Corsair was even more difficult to row in rough waters, and this would prove to be risky in future contests.

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 Lots of drilling continued that week leading into the Sprints trying to master the boat for all water conditions, but the varsity began to feel the proverbial “boat sing” and was ready for the Sprints.

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For the Sprints, Calvin suggested they bring the Pocock to Worcester for qualifying and the Corsair for the Finals.  Ernie got word back that only one boat could be entered (likely limited rack space?) and Calvin chose the Corsair.

Well, the rest is history.  Having harnessed the design of the Corsair with technique, strength and endurance, NU won the Eastern Sprints in 1972.  In the Grand Final, Northeastern was in the outside lane 6 and stayed close to Harvard being behind about 1 length with 400 meters to go before sprinting across the line ahead of Harvard in second and Penn in third, making NU history.

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The Corsair, proved to be that extra level of performance that a very strong and capable 1972 NU varsity could prove that they deserved an Eastern Sprints gold.

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Hugh Whall, Sports Illustrated’s rowing correspondent, attributed the ’72 victory to NU’s new ergometers and Edith Arlett’s bag of magic tricks.  Discussing the seedings for the race, he notes that NU had broken the Charles River course record but suggested a tailwind was involved.  Ironically, the only shell mentioned in the article was the Pocock used by Penn, since it had sunk during the Adams Cup race a week or so prior to the Sprints.

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1972 Eastern Sprints Winners

• Bow - Geoff Marshall

• 2 - Bill Backman

• 3- Carl Nordstrom

• 4 - Rich Wennersten

• 5 - Peter Karassik

• 6 - John Maslowski

• 7 - Kent MacKinnon

• 8 - Cal Coffey

• Cox - Frank Leahy