Evening star., 1941-06-12
Critic Argues Streak
Is Due 10 Crimson S
Superior Material
Ellis TO Win Saturday
Must Use Technique
To Offset Weight
BY LAWRENCE PERRY.

NEW LONDON, Conn, June 12.-
Over and above the attitude of Yale
and Harvard creWmen concerning
the outcome of the varsity 4-mile
race on the Thames Saturday-the
Crimson is confidence itself, the Ellis
desperately are determined-is the
coaching aspect here.
Tom Bolles, the Cambridge men,
tor, a product of the University of
Washington school of aquatics, de-
veloped winning way at Harvard
in his very first year and has yet
to lose 4-mile race to the Blue.
Edward Leader, also q Washington
graduate, has taught long and sue
cessfully at Yale. He has had a
string of victories as long as Bolles'
present string.
But in the last five years Leader
has not won and when this happens
to coach the old grads, the row.
ing alumni especially, begin to raise
their broWS. One would think that
men who have swung sweeps in an
eight-oar shell would realize that
material weighs the scales heavily to
one side or the other, that coach,
be he ever so skilled in the tech
nique of sweep swinging, must have
a boatload of oarsmen not only able
to absorb the varied principles of
watermanship-which are not easy
to absorb-but endowed with physi-
cal power.
Yale Depends on Finesse.
Most certainly Harvard's stalWart
crew possesses more power than the
Yale eight So, If Yale has any
chance of leaving its rival astern
this week, supremacy must be found
IN flnesSe. Trouble here is that. if
Harvard merely equals the Blue in
this respect, the element of power
Will determine the issue in favor
of the Crimson.
NOW II Yale 0arSmen of the past,
who know lot about rowing tech
mic, were in a position to gain an
Idea OF the way in which their
oarsmen operate inboard and out
board, comparing it with the Grim
son technic, they would be able to
tell Just how efficiently the rival
crews had been coached. If both
were equally proficient on the slides.
In handling their sweeps and Har-
ward won, they would know that
power was the winning factor, some
thing with which coaching had
nothing to do.
But they will be in no position
TO judge. They will be in an OBJ
servation train which never. save
just at the finish, is within a mile
of the competing eightS. Observa-
ton car experts profess to tell
everything. They pirate about the
spacing. the puddles and all sorts
Of technicalities. But it's all talk.
They may see what appears like a
break in rhythm In some part of
the shell. But how do they know
that the coach has not had to de-
wise for an oarsman style that
appears awkward, out of tune, in
order to harmonize him with his
comrades?
No. Yale has lost five straight
races and, If it loses next Saturday,
having rowed the best that has
IN 1t to row, that ought to make
no difference. But you will hear
in accentuated volume the talk al
ready heard-that Leader has played
out his string He was wonderful,
so will go the talk, when he was
younger and his eyesight was bet
ter. But now he misses that er-
roneous flick of the wrist some
where in the boat that initiates
against perfection. His sense of ad-
justment is less nice than it used
to be. All sorts of little lapses that
used to be spotted instanteously are
no longer caught. And so fourth
and so on. They won't say anything
about power, if Harvard wins, moth
ing about the material.
But, so far as your correspondent,
who has followed college rowing
closely for nearly 80 years, is con-
cerned, he would like to see Yale's
approximate Harvard's in
physique and rowing type before
counting Leader out. The writer
has not seen this approximation of
material in the last six years.