The 50 Year History of Northeastern Men's Rowing

[@cutback99]

Great video

[@SkipoleOne]

I came to Northeastern in 1968 and joined the Northeastern News staff as a Sport's Writer. I remember one of my first assignments was to cover "Crew". I had no idea about the sport and had to do some frantic research (no internet in those days). When conducting interviews I was always treated respectfully by Coach Arlette and the crew members and will always cherish those memories.

[@marywelker7528]

Amazing video!! Very well done and very inspirational!

[@daveplumb9974]

I enjoyed the video. Nicely produced. The comments about achieving "the swing" and the miles to get there resonated. One correction I'd like to make is that Northeastern is not the only team to sweep the Dad Vail. I rowed for Marietta as a Freshman and our shell came in second place to Northeastern in '65. The next year In '66, I rowed in Marietta's varsity heavyweight shell and we won at the Vail. Our JV and Freshmen team won as well making it a sweep for us too. Marietta was a "real" small college with a much smaller talent pool to choose from of only about 2,000 students. Our biggest competitive edge was our Coach, Ralph Lindamood. Although he never rowed competitively, he was an expert trainer. We respected him greatly and he inspired us. We all have fond memories of competing on the crew team and especially at the Dad Vail.

[@skipgundlach]

Hi, all! Adding to teammate Dave Plumb's comments: The 1965 JV Dad Vail Finals race was the only one in which a boat in which I sat finished other than first in my time at Marietta College, so I remember that well. In 1966, the very next year, Marietta repeated Northeastern's feat, sweeping all three races (which was all there were at the time; today there are dozens of finals in as many categories, men and women). The Dad Vail Rowing Association honored us on our 50th anniversary, including a reception on Friday night and an announced row-by of, in turn, the Frosh, JV and Varsity boats on Saturday afternoon. The characterization by the Dad Vail folk at our reunion this May, that we were the only school to sweep the finals, was correct only in that we are the only MEMBER of the Dad Vail Rowing Association to have done it. I believe that Brown also did it at some other point. But it’s akin to MC going up against Duke or the like in the basketball playoffs; for us to have embarrassed Wisconsin in 1964 (my Freshman crew and our Varsity handily defeated Wisconsin in Marietta that spring; that the Wisconsin Frosh went on to win the IRA suggests that we were more than unusual, but at a point, mere volume will overcome dedication and effort - and, thus, it's no surprise that NE swept... Your characterization of the DVRegatta as the small college championships was accurate - and while I didn’t do the research, I’d bet that each crew’s year (frosh or subsequent for the other crews) had each class with more men available than our entire student body of the time. It’s pretty tough to compete against that leverage. What a glorious time to be a MC rower, despite being sandbagged in 1965 :{)) [handlebars and full beard, tm., left over from my barbershop quartet days, since trimmed] L8R Skip Gundlach, AKA Gas Station, 5 seat, with all Gold other than that JV year Dad Vail - Congratulations, 1965 NE crews!