Monday, May. 25, 1931

Yale Derby

At Derby, Conn., 10 mi. west of New Haven, the Housatonic River runs into a wide curve above a mill dam. Two miles above the dam, three crews last week waited for the start of the Carnegie Cup race. In the Yale boat, as the result of the latest of many shifts by Irascible Coach Ed Leader, Dave Manuel sat at the No. 6 slide in place of James Gamble Rogers Jr., the architect's son and varsity captain who had occupied it for two years. The Cornell boat, almost unchanged from the one which won the Poughkeepsie Regatta against the best crews in the land last year, was the favorite. In it were Bob Wilson, last year's stroke; Peter McManus, the baldheaded, 30-year old No. 5 who watched 14 Poughkeepsie regattas from his father's farm on the Hudson and, ten years after he got out of high school, made up his mind to go to college and become a crewman. Princeton, in the east lane, had about the same outside chance as the last Princeton crew which won the Carnegie Cup (1927). It so happened that the start of the race synchronized almost exactly with the start of the Kentucky Derby (see above), but otherwise there was no connection between the two events. Derby Day at Yale, the day of the first big spring regatta, usually falls before Derby Day at Churchill Downs. It is a festival touched by ceremonious mania, causing juniors to add to the gaiety of fraternity houseparties the absurd and jovial dignity of top-hats, frock-coats and waistcoats with pearl buttons. Seniors rig themselves on Derby Day in the clownish regalia of sailors, goat-bearded farmers, raffish monks or intoxicated nuns. When, four years ago, this mood of conviviality caused an undergraduate to establish a bar in the bottom of a two-story charabanc, efforts were made to modify the diversions of Yale's Derby Day. It remained, last week, the chief holiday week-end of New Haven's spring. A quota of canoes, rocked by apparently inebriate paddlers, capsized above the dam. Presumably due to Depression, only half the seats were sold in the observation train. Critics who doubted the ability of the championship Cornell crew were embarrassed by the race at Derby. Cornell, in the unlucky west lane, did not bother to use a racing start, moved into an effortless paddle less than a length behind Yale & Princeton. Yale was rowing about 36 to Cornell's 28 or 29--an almost insultingly slow beat for a two-mile race. Princeton kept up a fatiguing high beat for the first mile and had begun to tire when Jimmy Burke, the Cornell coxswain, began to raise his stroke. At the mile and one-half, (here was a fraction of a second when it seemed that Cornell might lose. Wilson faltered, but Burke splashed water on his face. At the finish Cornell was two lengths ahead of Yale, five ahead of Princeton. Harvard v. Navy v. Penn. Last fortnight a Harvard crew coached by Syracuse graduate Charles Whiteside beat Princeton and M. I. T. Last week rowing a little more smoothly, much more confidently, the same crew beat Navy by a length and one-half with a spurt over the last third of a mile and one-half course on the Schuylkill at Philadelphia. Penn was a poor third. Columbia v. M. I. T. Columbia and M. I. T. lined up on the Harlem and rowed a mile and three-quarters in water that was rough as well as filthy. Columbia, favored to win by three lengths, got away faster but M. I. T. caught up and led for the first mile. Going under the last bridge, they were even; in the last half-mile Columbia pushed ahead a length and one quarter.

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