CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The 2023 Senior Perspectives is the 18th in a series of annual collections. Senior captains and representatives of teams at Harvard have been invited to contribute viewpoints based on personal experience from both their senior seasons and full varsity careers at Harvard.
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Hometown: London, England
Sport: Men's Heavyweight Rowing
Concentration: Computer Science
House: Adams
I've walked the path from Anderson Bridge to Newell Boathouse roughly 1,200 times while I've been part of Harvard Rowing. Often it was a groggy early morning trek with a large Dunkin' Cold Brew and a cinnamon bagel. Sometimes it was a leisurely stroll in the sun with friends. And sometimes it was a tired limp through the snow for the second session of the day. Unsurprisingly, I miss Newell dearly already. Newell is full of a century of iconic rowing history. And it is the backdrop of countless personal memories. I felt a similar sadness leaving my rowing program at school, but this farewell has a weightier feel. Friendships will persist, but the daily camaraderie and shared sense of purpose disappear as we all scatter to different corners of the world, pursuing our own paths.
As an international student I had a culture shock coming to Harvard. The contrast between my native U.K. and the U.S. was more striking than I had expected. It took me time to adjust to the lightweight team too – new faces, new conversation topics, new jokes. Struggling to adapt to the rowing stroke on the lightweights (HVL), I was placed in lower boats than I was expecting. Not yet feeling settled on the team, I sometimes felt as though my efforts might be more 'productive' targeted towards other activities.
But I stuck around. Coach Ian Accomando, in particular, was a constant inspiration. Intermittently he would send us hype emails filled with hyperlinks to YouTube videos. Obscure movie or sports references were common – "Do you believe in miracles?!" type of thing with lots of exclamation marks. And when team morale was flagging, Ian would deliver rousing speeches. In one speech he told us about how he had wanted to row on Lake Quinsigamond at the Eastern Sprints (the East Coast championship) ever since he was a child. How rowing at the lake was a very special experience. How lucky we were.
We trained hard, with long steady state ergs, pieces on the water, and the Newell Triathlon. Beyond structured training, the team shared great moments – post-practice meals, Friday evening "pint nights," featuring large quantities of ice cream, and Saturday Quincy team brunches.
When COVID hit during sophomore year, and we went home, I stopped rowing for a while. My time off highlighted how much I valued rowing for HVL. Coming back motivated for junior year, I had my best year of training yet, dropping a lot of time on my 2k erg test and rowing in the 1V. Nevertheless, I struggled to stay light enough and at the beginning of this final year I switched to the heavyweight team, HUBC.
From the start of the year, at my tender height of 6'0" (if we're being generous), I knew it would be nearly impossible to make one of the top two heavyweight boats, no matter how hard I trained. This was the deepest year the heavyweights had ever had in terms of talent, with multiple Junior World Championship medalists in the 5V. After a year of hard training and brutal selection, I was glad to sit squarely at bow of the 4V for the entire season, coming away with an unbeaten dual season and a dominant win at the Eastern Sprints. In the rowing season, whenever you beat another crew they hand over their betting shirt to you. After winning Eastern Sprints we had a beautiful mountain of shirts. During the midweek racing each week leading up to Sprints, the 4V would play mind games with the 3V in the hope of rattling them before the next piece. Classic stuff. We regularly gave them a run for their money.
After graduation, HUBC goes to Red Top, Harvard's second boathouse in New London on the River Thames and the setting for the historical Harvard-Yale Regatta. At Red Top, we finally had a fully settled crew – no more selection. And we had just under three weeks to try to make it as fast as possible. Our crew was two Brits, four Americans, two Aussies, and a German. Some young, some old. Over the weeks we gelled into a really tight unit.
Jordan Dykema made constant stupid jokes.
Lachlan Roach finally talked to us. And
Benjamin Zeisberg smiled a lot. Sadly, we didn't beat Yale when we raced them, and we didn't get to paint the rock in crimson, as is customary for winners of the 4V, but the three weeks were still filled with great memories.
It didn't feel like it at the time, but our intercollegiate results never really mattered, not in an eternal way anyway. In a few decades, nobody will ever remember whether we beat Brown in our April 2023 dual-season race or not. Some rowing nuts may remember the outcome of the Harvard-Yale 1V race, but as a proud member of the 4V, my results are unlikely to be remembered by crowds for centuries.
But we'll remember them, and we'll remember the journey to the finish line. We'll remember the camaraderie of working together each day to make that boat as fast as possible, searching for that feeling of all eight of us moving together, placing our blades into the water as the boat surges, and the acceleration of the shell. Enjoyment came from the process. It was our project.
My teammates, both lightweights and heavyweights, have made it so easy to come back to this sport day after day. Their enthusiasm, their jokes, and their laughter fill my memories of Harvard rowing. Trudging across the bridge in the morning wasn't hard. I knew that when I got to Newell, I could sit on one of the benches in the warm changing room and shoot the breeze with my friends for between five and 20 minutes, depending on how many times I'd hit the snooze button that morning. It was often stupid stuff. Jim was pondering who had stolen a piece of his muffin; Tom's winter coat was taking up more than his prescribed number of inches of space on the long benches that we all intuitively agreed belonged to each of us; and Henry was being ridiculed for his decision to get changed on the floor in the corner of the room to avoid this fight for bench space. The frivolity of it was marvelous. That sacred time of our days was aptly named "bench time."
I miss all these little moments with my best friends. Looking beyond the horizon of my Harvard years, I hope that despite the gravity of the "real world," there will be plenty of opportunities for camaraderie and the little moments that bring the joy and fulfillment we experienced.
Thank you so much to all of the family, friends and coaches who have put up with me for the last however many years.
