Word: oarsman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...chewed gum, bellowed instructions through a megaphone and watched every move of his long-legged crew. A big man himself, he has no time for little men: "Unless he's six-feet-four and his hands hang down around his knees, he can't be a good oarsman." At Cambridge Bridge, the coach went wild yelling at a flock of dinghies to clear the course. In a practice spin at 2,000 meters, the varsity shell barely nosed out the freshmen. The time was slow and Coach Bolles shook his head gloomily...
...oarsman's problem is to move his craft not only with power, but in such a way that all motion other than forward and in a straight line is eliminated. it is this process that takes months of training, as well as natural ability. Any number of things can go wrong during a stroke, because every pull involves the use of the entire body in a precise sequence that must not vary if that all-important smoothness is to be maintained...
...instance, at the beginning of each stroke, the oarsman must flip his writs to turn the oar so that it enters the water absolutely perpendicularly. The slightest variation from a 90 degree angle will cause the oar to "knife in" and dig too deeply into the water. When this happens, the handle of the oar is apt to come up suddenly and hit the unsuspecting rower in the stomach, often lifting him unceremoniously out of the boat and depositing him in the river...
...similar build broad shouldered and long-limbed. In addition to these criteria, the prospective varsity oar must be endowed with coordination, large quantities of stamina, and equally generous amounts of enthusiasm, patience, and guts. But a man can have all the latter qualifications and still not become an oarsman unless he has the height to give him leverage to generate the needed power...
Weight is not overly important to Tom, although rough weather favors the heavy crew. As for age, Bolles feels that an oarsman hits his physical peak in his early to mid twenties, although the presence of 18-year-old Ted Anderson in this year's shell proves that this rule is like-wise inflexible...