The Washington times., 1914-07-09
N|CKALLS BROTHERS
PRESENT PROBLEM
How Much of Their Successes
Are Due to English Rowing
System.

The victory Of the Yale crew over
Harvard at New London and the won.
derful showing of the Pennsylvania
eight, which finished a good second to
Columbia and beat out Cornell al
Poughkeepsie, have revived discussion
as to the respective merits of the Eng
lish and American rowing systems The
Yale and Pennsylvania eights were to
certain extent products of the Eng.
nsh methods. Guy Nickalls at Yale
and Vivian Nickalls at Pennsylvania
are EDglishmen and brothers. Both
learned their rowing at Oxford Uni
versity. from which they graduated and
since then have been teaching their
Ideas TO the youth of England and
America.
1t is reported that after the officials
had declared that Yale had won over
Harvard. Guy NickaIls remarked: This
Is great day for England" Possibly
he didn't say this, but il he did he
probably said it again. when he heard
of how the Pennsylvania eight, gen
orally considered a rank outsider at
Foughkeepsie, was the surprise of the
regatta. If the success OF Yale and
Pennsylvania in these two regattas was
due 10 the English system then the
American rowing this year.
But the general public undo,Ibte edIv
has very much confused idea as to
the differences in the so-called English
and American methods. That difference
ism nearly SO great as imagined There
is sIlSht dlference in the rigging of
the boats; the Englishmen use the thoIe
pin for the oars instead Of the America
swivel, and there is a slight difference
In the stroke. But the fact Is that m.
Nickalls brothers did not transplant The
entire English system
vivian Nickalls has been in this coun-
try for number of years. Previous to
coaching the Pennsylvania oarsmen he
was coach Of the Detroit Poat CIub
When he first took up his work at De
troit Nickalls taught the English sys-
tem; Whlch was the only one he knew.
In the meantime he began the study of
American methods. He isn't n biooted
man, and was quick to See what Vas
good in the methods taught nv Aneri-
can coaches and adopted al he couId
Although VIVIAN Nickalls used an Eng
lish shell and rtgged IL ACCORDING 70
English ideas, the stroke he teaches Is
q compromise between the American and
English with the best featurec Of each
retained.
Cornell has always rowed q trnIcar
American stroke, and every one who ras
seen Courtney's men on the water has
been struck by the smoothnpss with
which the boat runs between the
strokes. Although there NAV be more
power in the catch and recovery of fbe
English stroke, II has been claimed for
the American stroke that the power is
more evenly distributed, with the result
that the shell rides evenly between
strokes without a noticeable check. But
the Pennsylvania and Yale eights in
their respective regattas rowed virtually
as smoothly as their opponents. and
still got plenty of power into their
strokes. This was the result of the
stroke taught by the Nick
alIs brothers II was noticeable that
neither OF the Nickalls brothers at
tributed the success Of his crews pri-
mariIy to English methods They Eave
shown such an unusually keen aupre-
citation of American ideas that they are
likely TO be copied in good many par
ticulars.