They had finally met a worthy opponent.

Perfection Personified

In 2003, one year later, more of the recruits moved into the first varsity boat, joining McDaniel once again. As juniors, they witnessed the men’s top-seeded varsity heavyweight crew at last win Eastern Sprints, exacting vengeance on that same Wisconsin squad that had knocked the previous year’s group to second place.

McDaniel got to make up for the previous year’s second-place finish—only the second blemish, or “bad side,” to his rowing career.

The varsity heavies remained undefeated, and went on to compete for the first time for the National Championship IRA Regatta, breaking a longtime tradition of abstaining due to scheduling conflicts with the annual Harvard-Yale regatta. But with those conflicts gone due to a Bulldog policy change, the opportunity arose.

And like the team had done the entire year, and the years before this, the Crimson simply won.

The varsity heavies secured the Varsity Challenge Cup by a margin of four seconds over Wisconsin, capturing the sixth national championship for men’s heavyweight crew in Harvard history. A strong third-place showing from a previously undefeated second varsity boat helped garner the Ten Eyck trophy, as well, presented to the overall points champion of the IRA races.

A victory at the Harvard-Yale regatta the next weekend capped off the Crimson’s magical season.

Doing It Again

This year, those recruits, now weathered seniors, face the lofty challenge of repeating perfection. They lose two seniors to graduation, but if you ask them, you’ll find that they relish the seemingly impossible pressure to improve—just like in their freshman year.

“We lost a few really good seniors, but we have some good sophomores and juniors behind us,” said Chastain-Chapman. “The expectation in the boathouse is to win everything, and people won’t be satisfied with anything but that.”

Least of all the rowers themselves.

“We expect nothing less than perfection, really,” McDaniel said. “We wouldn’t be happy with anything else other than the same. Except, maybe, victory by a larger margin—it would be a terrible misfortune to have junior year be our best.”

This past weekend in Rochester, the varsity crew defeated Dartmouth and Brown by a considerable margin, and the Crimson seems to be right on track.

Then again, with this recruiting class, the sky is the limit.