“I think that we all quickly learned that no matter what we had done before coming to Harvard, rowing—as well as other things—was going to be a totally different ball game,” Sam Bryson said.

Growing Pains

The depth of the group is something heavyweight coach Harry Parker is particularly quick to remember.

“The class was deep—we knew that before they had even arrived,” Parker said. “I thought it was going to be a good class, but what’s more impressive is that it has continued. It’s unusual to have quite so many members be so dominant in the first crew, and then the second, and even in the third. The depth is quite remarkable.”

Amazingly enough, that so-called dominant group began its first ever season together in the most uncharacteristic and unexpected of ways: with a loss.

“We lost our first race, ever,” Webb remembers. “It was our freshman year, racing against Brown.”

Virtually everyone in the class credits that defeat—an initial shock to team egos and hopes—as a defining moment in the evolution of the team.

“Our freshman year was definitely very special, and it was in large part because of that loss,” Oberst said. “It was the last time we really lost as a class. After that race, we worked extremely hard, and we just knew that we weren’t going to let that happen again.”

It was then that a sense of togetherness, as well as the crew’s true image and frame of mind, was born.

“We only amassed something like two losses after that in the next three years,” Webb said. “Some members of the team haven’t lost at all. It was definitely a turning point—we realized that losses are simply unacceptable, and so adopted that attitude from then on.”

Webb is quick, however, to clarify.

“It’s not arrogance, though. It’s confidence. Now, I just have so much confidence when racing with these guys, even when we’re down. We know we’re not going to lose.”

The outlook hasn’t failed the admittedly tight-knit group since.

“Getting to know one another in the context of an intensely competitive environment was sometimes a touchy process, especially since it was our first year at the college level,” Bryson said. “But we certainly came out of it as a group who felt like they shared a special bond with one another.”

Cool Runnings