Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-03
WRIGHT TO TEACH
MODIFIED ENGLISH
STROKE AT PENN
Quakers' New Coach Calls
His Style Of Rowing
Natural Stroke"
AS NICKALLS' METHOD
BY EDWARD R. BUSHNELL

! DY EDWAINb DODAllNDbb
Tho intercollegiate rowing year will gee
another test of the respective merits OF
the English and American stroke and
| style of rigging Pennsylvania, Yale and
| Harvard will stick to the English, while
| Columbia Cornell and Syracuse will up
hold American methods.
Joe Wright. new coach OF the Pennsyl-
| vania oRrsmen, In answer to the query put
by the writer, has replied as follows:
you ask the style of stroke am going
to teach at Pennsylvania, English or
American I might say I do not know
what you would call our way Of going in
Canada. But l call II the natural stroke.
where a crew gets the most speed with
the least eXertion-not quite as much
swing as the English, and a bit more than
the American. We use the long slide-2s
"As to thole pins we had one eight
rlgged with them two years ago. Our
senior eight rowed the boat with them
both years and liked them very much.
Our fours were rlgged with swlvelS and 1t
was hard to get them in the four after
using tho elghts. With the tholes, whether
they are better than the swivels or not.
Il is n matter of opinion. like the tholes
very much, and II It were left TO the men
who row them, they would all say tholes.
II believe the Pennsylvania boats are
rgged with tholes and 1 will not change
them"
Same Stroke
This means that Wright will teach vir-
tually tho same kind of stroke that Vivian
Nckalls did. This was not the extreme
English stroke, but a compromise be-
tween Il and the American stroke.
Yale, Of course, will stick to the Eng
lish stroke and the thole pins, for Guy
Nickalls not only believes them superior
to the American methods, but he thinks
he has demonstrated 1t sufficiently within
the last two years.
Jim Rice, of Columbia, on the other
hand, thinks that he has evidence to the
contrary In commenting on the recent
victory of Columbia over Yale Rice said:
"Columbla's victory should do much to
counteract the growing feeling that Eng
lish rowing methods are superior to the
we'll established American theories of row.
ing. Certainly the Yale crow, heavier and
more powerful physically than the Co.
lumbia eight and a trihe more experienced
In workmanship, did not give much
proof that English methods are the best
Difference in Locks
Tho outstanding difference between
the English and American-rIgged crews,
which is noted by the average man, is
the fact that the English oarsmen has
thole pins in the rowlook while the
American uses the swivel lock. The chief
advantage of the thole pins, or at least
the advantage claimed for them, Is that
the crew using them is able to get away
faster because of the greater rigidity of
pin as against the moving swivel.
But thole pins or no thole pins, Yale
was badly beaten off the mark by the
Columbia crew. Yale firmly believed
that, rowing n lower stroke, It could
offset Columbia's higher beat by the ad-
vantage of having thole pins; but in prac-
tice the theory did not work cut I may
say that l have never seen It work out,
certainly not with American crews. For
the last two years the University of
Pennsylvania crews have rowed with
thole pins, and they have always been
jumped at the mark by the American
rlgged crews"
Rice thinks that Yale has the finest
rowing material in the country and says
that Nickalls chief difficulty is likely to
be making a selection of the best eight
men from three or four good crews.