New Britain herald., 1916-06-19
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firsts: five seconds; two thirds and 1ne fifth. During the fifteen years of varsity fours racing the Ithaca conn binatiOns won ten firsts; three seconds; one third and one fourth. Since the introduction of the junior eights race in 1914 the Cornell second crews have captured both events.
 In addition to this remarkable listsN of victories, Courtney-coached crews hold all records for the four races on the Hudson course as well as an im- posing number of wins in dual and triangular regattas with crews which do not compete at Poughkeepsie, in- cluding Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other colleges. ~
 Was a Wonderful Judge.
 Courtney has always been a wonder ful judge of rowing material even in the rought and although strict and se- were at all times, would spend hours with embryo oarsmen who showed promise and a desire to learn the art of sweep swinging. He would never brook interference from any quarter during the rowing season and never forgave those candidates who broke training. Time and again Courtney
  out of the shell because they violated his rules and they never came back i Tn rowing he was an autocrat and martinet but he produced resultsj had the support of the faculty, alumni and student body at Cornell and it will be hard to replace the "0ld Man" in the affections of those con- nected with the Ithaca university or l wiz rH 1 Courtney's standing and effective 1 ness as a coach were not the only 1 claims he had for prominence in the rowing world. In early life as an amateur he won eighty-eight events without suffering a single defeat. ] Later on as a professional he won 1 thirty-nine contests and lost only seven, truly a wonderful record. Be- fore he was out of his teens Court ney had successfully competed in rowing regattas, but it was at Sara f toga Springs in 1873 that he won his 1 first great victory. That was on Sep4 tember Il, when he captured the Senior Souls event in 14:15. Two years later he duplicated this victory at Troy, N. Y, and the year follow ing at Philadelphia, he and his club mate Robinson of the Union Springs i Souls repeating their winning of the same event at Troy N. Y, the pre- vious year.
 Tn the professional ranks Courtney was very successful in rowing com petitions but an attack of sunstroke in 1878 marked the beginning of his decline and in May 1879 while row. ing against Hanlan and Riley atN Washington, Courtney was taken Ill before he had gone 500 yards r@tls
 One of Courtney's former pupils at Cornell who developed into an oarsman of exceptional ability de- scribed the Ithaca rowing mentors stroke as follows:
 "Courtney's stroke is sort of n1eN dium and the simplest you can get He does not use long reach, only about thirty inches, neither s big | layback, just about medium, but he lays great stress on a hard catch and strong pull at the middle of the stroke On the catch the oar is an- chored in the water, then the strong pull begins. Also at the finish Court ney has the oar lifted perpendicu-N larly and then beveled, not blending both movements in one. He makes much of the quick getaway of the hands and body at the finish of the stroke. This is sort of a combination of all types of strokes"
 An Apt Scholar.
 Courtney, himself, in describing the l development of the Cornell stroke wrote not long ago that it was worked out before the Cornell eight went to | England in 1895, having had its in- ception in the crew room in 1894, where it was perfected by Courtney and Thomas Hall, captain and stroke of the crew in that year. Courtney wrote:
 "I had suspected for a long time that we were not getting all the pow CT out of the stroke that we ought to. One day I talked with Tom Hall about it and asked him if there wasn't some machine in Sibley college that could be used to show us just how the power was being applied in the pull of the oar. He said there was the dynamometer, and he borrowed it. We rigged it on one side of the rowing machine in the crew room. It had a recording pen which marked l a curve on a sheet of paper as the i power it measured increased or fell off.
 Right there I learned more in fifteen minutes about rowing than had in fifteen years before. We found that there was break in the middle of the pull caused by a pause in the body swing at the moment the slide [ was started. We had been starting the leg drive after beginning the pull with the arms The surve made by the recording pen went up and then down and then up again, showing clearly a loss of power just before the middle of the stroke.
 we experimented and found that we n1ust start the leg drive and the