Omaha daily bee., 1905-06-18

,
the flag, but If Syracuse or any other eight
beats my boys at Poughkeepsie the winner
will be a dickens of fast crew." is the
way Charles Courtney put it the other day
Basis for Courtney's Hope.
Courtney as a general thing does not
boast before or after a race, but those who
witnessed the magnificent exhibition Of
Workmanship on the part OF the Cornell
varsity crew at Cambridge a week ago
when the Harvard university eight was
beaten after plucky race, can but feel
that If Courtney has any more at home like
that crew a great deal of time and money
might be saved by turning over the three
prizes to Cornell at once. 1t is no be-
trayal Of confidence to say that in the judg-
ment Of "the silent man." Cornell has this
year varsity crew 25 per cent better than
the crack crew of two years ago, and fully
twice as good as the crew which the uni
versity sent to Henley for the Grand Chal-
lenge cup In 1895.
Cornell was defeated last year bv
Syracuse on her merits. 1t was no re-
| Election on the Courtney stroke as his
close friends well know. Publicly it was
| supposed that his system of locomotion
as applied to sweeps was inferior to that
Of James Ten Eycls, but the inside of the
thing, now told for the first time, was
| this:
Six members of CornelIs varsity crew
! tried to run ''the old man." These six
J youths had what may be called in the
vernacular swelled heads. They figured
| It out in their own peculiar way that
| they were the whole university crew.
Courtney and all. When he supposed that
| they were honestly observing the rules
! n ht.b
undoing all that he had ever done for
! them, They secretly smiled over his
discipline, obeyed him when observed and
! disobeyed him at every opportunity
| Courtney learned all this when Il wns
too late to remedy matters, and the MORN
! ing OF the race he called three members
of the varsity crew and four members
OF the freshmen eight aside on the club.
house float and said to them:
you chaps are going to lose today and
I'm damned glad of It,"
1t was long sentence for Courtney to
speak. and it was doubly appalling to the
young men, because the coach never
swears except under the most trying cir.
cumstances 1t struck terror into the
hearts OF the seven, and one of them said
that he would remember the white face
OF the old coach and the single expression
OF condemnation until my dying day.'
But the whole thing taught Courtney q
lesson the same as Henley did, and a,
long as he remains alive and a coach n
is safe to say that never again will h,
accept as gospel truth the assurances N
any crew that it is 'obeying orders"
Ten EycIS's Chance.
An expert who has seen the 'varsit,
crew Of Syracuse and who served on Z
committee in connection with the last in
tercollegiate race is authority for tn,
statement that the boys from the CITY n
salt are not nearly as good as the crew
which represented the university las
year Assuming though that this year
varsity crew of Syracuse is as good a.
It's predecessor OF last season IL is no
good enough to beat Cornell this time
assuming also that there be no acciden
ana that none of the Comedians zoe
wrong he says. IL Courtney were ;
gambling man he might have worle,
things differently on the Charles rive
recently. He might have sent out hi
freshmen and varsity crews with in
structions not to show too much. and thin
keep some OF the following OF the othe
crews guessing about the big race a
Poughkeespie But Courtney is not ,
gambler, and as result the hrst crew
OF Cornell defeated the best crew Of Har
ward in cruel style. and the Cornell
Ijuniors went over the American Henle,