The men's crew team accomplished a seemingly impossible mission last weekend. In its 2006 spring season debut, Brown took down perennial-powerhouse Harvard, stunning the three-time defending national champions in the varsity eight race. The back-and-forth battle came down to the final 500 meters, with Bruno prevailing in 5:35.7, a half-second in front of Harvard. The loss was the Crimson's first in a head-to-head race since the 2001 season - a span of 24 races and 32 opponents. Led by Head Coach Paul Cooke '89, the young squad was also the first American team of any kind to outpace the Crimson since 2002. Captains Ben Harrison '07 and Dave Coughlin '07 sat down with The Herald to talk about the epic win.
Herald: How would you describe what you felt when you beat Harvard?
Harrison: It's comparable to beating (the University of Southern California) in football next year, if the Trojans had won the national title again this year and then been undefeated through next fall.
Coughlin: Beating Harvard is something that every school dreams about. They are always the ones to get, and when they win, they tend to not be too sportsmanlike about it. To defeat them is very satisfying.
Since crew isn't exactly the most spectator-friendly sport, how would you best explain what you do to the Brown student body?
Coughlin: It is a terrible spectator sport, but it's something you can appreciate while doing it. There's a beautiful symmetry to the whole thing. You're rowing a boat that's about two-and-a-half feet wide, and then there's eight 200-pound guys going up and down as fast as they can. So you're trying to keep this tiny boat as straight as possible ... it combines a lot of different aspects of athleticism - endurance, strength and a definite degree of balance and finesse.
Your team is young this year, and a large percentage of the varsity eight boat moved up from last year's standout freshman boat.
Coughlin: (The sophomores) were used to rowing in their own boat, and we had to mesh that with our varsity style. We had to go back to square one, but we had a lot of good, competitive training and races between each other this year. It elevated our training to a new level.
Harrison: We only graduate one rower and one coxswain (next year). Though they are two great athletes, we are in a strong position right now.
Coughlin: I'm excited that we've already reached this level so early in the season. We're at a place that would normally take us another couple of weeks to get to. The question is, will we be able to improve upon that and get faster and faster? That's our goal.
Harrison: The changes that our coaches have made in the last year are paying off. I can't say enough great things about our head coach, Paul Cooke. As a person and a coach, he is probably the most determined and honest person I know.
Who would you cast to play your coach in a movie?
Harrison: I wish I had a week to think about this question and do research. Someone determined.
Coughlin: And a little crazy.
Harrison: Al Pacino maybe? He's not good enough of an actor.
Coughlin: Gregory Peck.
Harrison: He's dead.
Coughlin: That's too bad. He'd be great.
How about each other?
Harrison: Brad Pitt for Dave, I mean, come on, Dave's an attractive guy.
Coughlin: I think Ben should be Dolph Lundgren, the big Russian guy (Ivan Drago) from Rocky IV.
How do you lead the men out of the boat?
Harrison: I'd say moral guidance. The only thing you can really do as a captain is decide to lead by example. Dave is a great example of how to live your life, academically, socially, athletically. Dave and I both believe very strongly in doing well in school.
Coughlin: We have a few mechanisms that help in that area. You have an invaluable network of guys available to you for guidance, whether in the humanities or sciences. (Harrison is a history concentrator, while Coughlin concentrates in neuroscience.) We have academic advisers within the team. We also do a lot of community service as a team. We have guys going down to Fox Point (Elementary School) to volunteer (in a fifth-grade classroom).
What's the craziest thing that's ever happened on the water?
Harrison: Once this fall we were pretty far down in the bay, out on a low row. The Coast Guard patrols the area to protect the natural gas and oil tankers. ... So we were rowing by a huge tanker, and a Coast Guard (boat) with a M-60 mounted on the front came speeding out after us. I guess we were too close, and he said he would have to shoot us if we came that close again.
When you go on away trips do you use your own boats?
Harrison: The thing about the nature of our sport, is that you do a lot of training for very few competitions. This season we really only have one true away race minus the championships. ... But for that, you take the boats apart, put them on a trailer, hook them up to a truck and drive them to the competition site.
Coughlin: Our boatman ... even drove them down to Florida for our spring training trip this year.
And most people don't realize that crew is a year-round sport.
Coughlin: Indoor season is by far the hardest. In the winter we use machines called ergo meters. ... You line up 40 people in one room on these and you mimic rowing for hours.
Harrison: There is an indoor race in the winter that we are lucky to do well at (Harrison won the championships as a sophomore and placed second this year). But yesterday was our first outdoor race and we have been training daily since Sept. 1, sometimes twice a day. We're here during breaks and stay a month after school is out.
Coughlin: Joe (Donahue '07) did the math recently, and it's three hours of practice for every stroke we take in a race.
What does the future hold for you two?
Harrison: I'd like to continue my rowing career if I can by attending Oxford (University). I'd like to try and make a national team.
Coughlin: He's actually going to go train at Princeton with the national team this summer and hopefully make a boat for the national championships. I guess for me, I'm intending to go to med school. I'd like to take a year off though and in my gap year, I'm also considering going to Oxford for a master's and row.
Harrison: I want Dave to be my brain surgeon when I'm older.
Are you going to need brain surgery?
Harrison: No, but if I did, I'd trust Dave to hook me up with a frontal lobotomy.
