“I thought, ‘Wow, we’re every bit as good as they are,’” Haas says. “I realized I could be a part of something great.”

Great they were and still are, much to the chagrin of many East coast rowing powerhouses. Recently, east coast prep schools Andover and St. Paul’s have removed CJRC from the spring schedule—it’s just not worth it.

“We went after those prep schools kids,” Kummer recalls. “We didn’t know any better. In Kentucky, kids used to ask, ‘Rowing? Canoeing? What is that? Why don’t you play basketball, a real sport?’ We just took that aggression out on crews that got more respect.”

GO EAST, YOUNG MEN

The three Midwesterners all eventually packed up and took their gig out east.

Back east, people know about rowing. People care—lining the banks of the Charles as dozens of boats glide by each weekend. In Cincinnati, rowing is but a whisper amongst louder conversations of high school football and baseball—no matter the national championship hardware.

“Our high school yearbook didn’t have any mention of rowing in it at all,” Haas says. “We didn’t get any respect in our hometown.”

They left the skeptics behind in Cincinnati. They left behind high school trophies in the hopes of winning some collegiate hardware.

And, they are adamant, they left behind the putrid Licking River.

“Here your blades don’t hit too many rats with rigor mortis,” Kummer says. “And I haven’t seen a dead pig here yet.”

“I used to see at least two condoms in the water every day,” chimes in Haas.

Luff agrees. “Yeah, and I think there was a dead body in there once.”

The Charles has indeed been friendly to the CJRC trio, with vermin-free waters just one of the perks offered them at Newell Boathouse.

Haas and Kummer entered the Crimson program in September of 2001, months after the lightweights had sprinted to a national title in Camden, N.J. In 2003, when Luff came to Cambridge, the lightweights had claimed the IRA crown yet again the previous spring.

It didn’t take long for the CJRC trio to add more hardware to an already impressive Harvard collection. Haas tried out the heavyweight ranks his freshman year, stroking the first novice boat to an Eastern Sprints title in 2002. Seven-seat Kummer and Haas were both members of the 2003 national championship varsity lightweight crew. Luff won a 2004 IRA title with the first freshman four.

This year, all three are members of the Crimson varsity crew gunning for its third national title in five years. Haas sits in four seat, Luff is ahead of him in five, and Kummer mans the seven-seat.

For the first time ever, the three of them are in the same eight. Luff just missed the cut for the CJRC varsity eight during Huff and Kummer’s senior year.

“Mike and I were in the second boat our sophomore year [of high school], and I drove Marc from school to practice every day for two years,” Haas said. “Day-to-day rowing with these guys is more special to me than winning a national championship.”

But then again, winning national championships is just old hat to this bunch.

—Staff writer Aidan E. Tait can be reached at atait@fas.harvard.edu.