Crews at Quinsigamond

Never before had this year's University of California crew found itself in the position it occupied last week in the finals of the Olympic Rowing Trials at Lake Quinsigamond, Mass.--overtaken by another boat in the same race. It was a dangerous position, because the Pennsylvania Athletic Club had been a half-length behind at the mile, was now a half-length ahead, and there was only 50 yd. of the 2,000-metre course left to go. Of the 50,000 people who were watching the race along the shore, not one had ever seen a more exciting finish. The California oarsmen, taken by surprise, churned the water with their extraordinary straight-backed stroke and pulled up by inches. Two yards from the finish the two bows were even. For a breathless instant, it was clear that the crew that got its oars in the water first for the last stroke would cross the line first. California did it, by a fraction of a second, won by two ft., in 6:06, an amazing new record for the course.

Bracketed with California in the semi-finals was a great crew of Columbia graduates, stroked by Alastair MacBain. They had reached the peak of condition just in time to beat Harvard by two feet in the first round. California's time against Columbia was 6:19--a course record at the time and just fast enough to win by half a length.

The Penn A. C. boat that beat Yale half an hour later did it in 6:15 3/5. After winning the U. S. club championship on the Schuylkill last fortnight, the Penn crew had a chance to be the first U. S. club crew in the Olympics since the Vesper Boat Club in 1904. In the eighth slide was Joe McNichol, a St. Joseph's College football player who never stroked a crew before this year. At No. 7 was Dan Barrow, a sheetmetal worker. The bow oar was an undertaker, Charley McIlvaine. McNichol wore dark glasses to protect his eyes against the sun and the rest of the boat wore black sweat shirts. It was a spectacular crew and an efficient one but for some reason the crowd at the Olympic trials favored California--perhaps because California, three weeks before the spring trials, had won the four-mile intercollegiate championship at Poughkeepsie, and because it was racing to support the tradition of the great California crew that won the Olympic championship in 1928.

The Olympic Committee had even better cause to be pleased last week when California won the final heat. The University of California Athletic Association had furnished the crew's expenses both ways for the trip East. Had an Eastern crew won, the Olympic Committee would have had to pay its way to Los Angeles.

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