Burnishing Olympic Gold, 50 Years Later

The victorious Vesper 8, posing in 1964. Bill Stowe is on right.

As Olympic rower Bill Stowe says at the end of his book, "All Together," about winning gold:
"There is no greater high and it can endure for years."
50 years, to be exact.
It's been that long since a motley crew from the Vesper Boat Club won gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in the eight-oared boat. Many of those men in that surprise upset will be honored tomorrow at a banquet  hosted by Vesper. For that occasion, I wrote a piece in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, which I'm reprinting below.   Interestingly, two of the rowers -- Bill Stowe and Emory Clark -- have written books about this seminal experience in their lives. (Clark's is yet unpublished). And all of them, every four years, at Olympic time, are asked to talk about their victory and show their medals, now touched by thousands of hands.

By Dorothy Brown

'Old men." "A curious crew." "A crusty bunch of adults." That's what the

press called the eight-man crew from Vesper Boat Club as they swept the

national trials and, in a huge upset, headed for the Tokyo Olympics.

The year was 1964, a half-century ago, and the ragtag Vesper crew had

just upended six decades of collegiate dominance of the Olympics'

premier rowing event. Their feat also placed Boathouse Row in an

international spotlight, secured its prominence as a coaching mecca, and

helped catapult the sport here and around the country.

Playing a significant role was Olympian Jack Kelly, brother of Grace and

son of John B., for whom Kelly Drive is named. Jack Kelly, a longtime

city councilman and Vesper officer, lured the nation's best rowers, even

arguing for "special assignment" for Olympic hopefuls in the military.

Who were these men?

Tom and Joe Amlong, a brawny pair of loud-mouthed brothers in their late

20s, one in the Air Force, the other in the Army; Hugh Foley, 20, and

Stan Cwiklinski, 21, quiet, hard-working students at LaSalle College; Bill

Knecht, 34, a father of six with a sheet-metal business; and three men

who had rowed in college - Marine Lt. Emory Clark, 26, and Boyce Budd,

25, (both Yale) and Navy Lt. Bill Stowe, 26, (Cornell).

Their 115-pound cox, Bob Zimonyi, was a 46-year-old Hungarian refugee

who often muttered his commands in his native language.

"A boatload of men will beat a boatload of boys every time," boasted

their diminutive, hard-driving coach, Al Rosenberg, after his "men"

outpaced the "boys" of undefeated Harvard and the University of

California at the trials.

Rosenberg, who died in December, will be missed Saturday<NO1>1-25<NO>,

at a banquet honoring the Vesper Eight and others who competed in the

'64 games. Theirs is an aging fraternity but their stories, to be retold

at the event, are a testimony to the championship spirit that continues

to draw elite rowers to Boathouse Row.

Athletes like Olympic-aspirant Vicky Opitz, 25, who trained at Vesper

before competing in the World Cup last year in Switzerland, where her

eight broke the world record. Her crew then nailed the World

Championship in South Korea.

"Part of my decision to train in Philadelphia," she said last week, "was

its incredible history as a mecca of rowing on the East Coast and the

stories that come out of there of people who are willing to push and

sacrifice to accomplish their goals."

In his diary, Emory Clark wrote of the pain and the joy of training on

the Schuylkill in the winter of 1964:

"You put the boat in and rain goes down your neck, but once you get out

and warmed up it's terrific - even if you are rigged low and you get

hung up every stroke and Al calls you on your release - I enjoyed it out

there tonight - lashing away at the water, cussing Zimonyi and counting

strokes.... Dark when we came in and still nasty. Wonderful. ... Pray

that the warm weather will see an end to our aches and pains."

Fellow rower Bill Stowe, in his 2005 book All Together wrote: "We rowed

six days a week in all kinds of weather, and we killed ourselves. When

we were not rowing, we weightlifted - tortured our bodies. ... We

greeted the sun in the morning and put it to bed in the evening. ... It

was both wonderful and dreadful."

It was nearly nightfall on Oct. 15, 1964, when, in a wind-delayed race,

the Vesper Eight churned its way toward the finish line, still 500

meters away. Suddenly, "there was a bright explosion and another, and I

had something else for my ravaged brain to focus on," Clark wrote.

"Could we have passed the finish line? Had I so miscalculated?"

Under flares bursting to light the way, Vesper streaked across the

finish five seconds ahead of the Germans. The interminable months of

workouts and weights and worry were over in 6 minutes, 18.23 seconds,

clinching gold for the United States and Philadelphia.

Dorothy Brown is a former editor at The Inquirer, and a member of Vesper

who rows only for fun.