The 1991 & 1992 USA Men's 4-
With a small taste of how it all started....
This is a rough history and retrospective of the USRowing men’s 4 without coxswain in the early 1990’s. It is mainly meant as a tribute to the 5 of us who would train and compete together for those 2 years and to act as a place for us to recall how hard we worked, how close we got, and how fast we used to be.
PennAC was the home to the USA Men’s 4- in the last 1980’s, led by Ted Nash’s knack for putting together fast boats and winning the trials. The consistent medaling at the World Championships (1986 gold at Nottingham Worlds, 1987 bronze at Copenhagen Worlds, 1989 silver at Bled Worlds) and Olympics (1988 silver at Seoul Olympics) proved that PennAC was the right place for the US to create, train, and prepare for competition. But something changed in 1990 when a bunch of recent college grads started training at the Harvard boathouse under the banner of the Boston Rowing Club, kind of guided by Harry Parker.
1990 - briefly
The World Championships were in Tasmania, Australia, and because it is in the Southern Hemisphere, the Worlds would be held late in the year (Oct. 31 - Nov. 4). Also planned for 1990 were the Goodwill Games in Seattle, and that created the opportunity for 2 US team selections that year. The Goodwill Games selection was to be done as part of the Indianapolis National Club Championships in June. PennAC saw the opportunity to win both the 4+ and the 4- that would be combined into the 8+ at the Goodwill Games. Ted Nash dug into the rule book and added a coxswain to his 4- from 1989 - but he did not use a 4+ shell. He literally had a hole cut into the bow deck of a 4-, reinforced the hull and put a dwarf up there, without any steering mechanism or speaker system. The 4- won the 4- trial, but lost in the last few strokes to the BRC crew. It was:
Pat Manning, Northeastern University
Jeff McLaughlin, Northeastern University
Chris Sahs, Brown University
Rob Shepherd, University of Washington
Alden Zecha, Princeton (coxswain)
Harry was our “coach” because we rowed out of Harvard and he lets use his equipment. He never said much to us to make us go faster…
We raced at the Goodwill Games in the summer of 1990 and got a silver medal as part of the 8+, which was the BRC 4+ and the 4- from PennAC (Tom, Riley, Raoul, and Richard Kennelly?). Kris Korzeniowski coached the 8 a couple times, bringing the Boston & Philly 4’s together and helped it blend quite well in a short period of time to get a silver:
After that at Mercer, NJ, the BRC 4- won the selection for the World Championships over PennAC and the BRC also won the 4+ trial and some of the PennAC rowers ended up in the 8+ including Tom and Mike Porterfield, finishing 5th. Doug Burden was in the 2x and also ended up 5th.
The 4- did not go well. We need up 9th. We tried to go fast, and Harry brought his golf clubs on the trip…
1991 - Vienna
In 1991, the selection for the US team had the 4- as the priority boat in order to avoid the debacle that was the 1990 4- and 4+. The top pairs at the speed order races plus some additional guys would be brought together for a selection camp led my Kris Korzeniowski. Tom Bohrer asked Mike to move to Philly to train in the 2- in the Winter of 1990-91, and they went to a regatta in Duisburg, Germany in the Spring. They made the finals, but did not medal.
Tom and Mike were the fastest pair, with Pat and Jack Rusher 2nd. Jeff Klepacki & Sean Hall were 3rd. Kris invited Jeff McLaughlin, Raoul Rodriguez as the wildcards, I think. Through seat racing and coach’s observations, Kris picked the 4- for the 1991 Worlds in Vienna, Austria: 3 NU huskies (Jeff, Mike, Pat) and Tom from Florida Institute of Technology (at that point, silver medalist in the 4- at the 1989 Worlds, and silver medalist the 1988 Seoul Olympics). The crew was asked to pick our coach. We asked Harry Parker but he wanted to keep coaching at Harvard and coach us which would not work. We discussed selecting Buzz Congram from NU but ended up deferring to Tom’s call of Ted Nash as the best coach for the 4-. We set up shop at PennAC bringing the 4- back to it’s rightful home.
The Aussie “Oarsome Foursome” won the 1990 World’s in Tasmania, making them the favorite for 1991. We showed up and got close, but ended up 2nd. Better than 9th! Video below:
After the World Championships, we made 10’s of dollars for modeling and raced as the stern 4 in the PennAC Championship 8 at the Head of the Charles and won:
Then we dominated the Head of the Schuylkill in the 4+; no results I know of, but I am pretty sure we won.
1992
In 1992, the USA men’s 4- was the priority boat again, so the selection was first - to be selected by April 12, 1992. Pat, Tom, Jeff, and Mike were all invited to try out for the Olympic 4- since we had been the highest medal at the 1991 Worlds. The Men’s Olympic Rowing Committee (MORC) agreed to the selection to be done at PennAC with 2 additional rowers, selected by Ted. Training prior to the selection was going well until Mike hurt his back and had to have surgery. He tried to battle back, but could not make the team. So then there were 3 openings to try out for the 4-.
Speed order pairs racing were to be held in March to see how all the men were doing. Jeff convinced Doug Burden to come train in Philly and prepare for the speed orders. Doug was in the men’s 2x in Vienna in 1991 with Chip McKibben, and they made the finals, finishing 6th. Doug and Jeff had rowed in the 1987 and 1988 USA 8+ to a World Championship gold medal in Copenhagen and then a bronze medal at the 1988 Seoul, Korea, Olympics.
Tom and Doug won the pair speed order, so Doug was invited to the 4- camp. Ted Nash invited Richard Kennelly and Jeff Klepacki to be the others at the selection camp. After a couple/few weeks, Ted selected the 4-: Pat, Tom, Jeff, and Doug.
The pre-Olympic plan was to travel to Europe to train and compete in some warm-up races for 6 weeks prior to heading to Barcelona for the Olympics. The US rowing team traveled together and went to:
Lucerne (finished 3rd at the Rotsee Regatta)
Stops in Antwerp, and Hazewinkel Belgium (training and we tried the “Hatchet” blade oars for the first time)
Amsterdam, Holland (where we beat the Aussies in a regatta 2 days in a row)
Briesach, Germany (training)
Bellicin (a training center - not Aiguebelette - the women trained there), France (where we saw the Tour de France go by and an old lady stepped out from the crowd to take a picture, immediately got hit by a rider, and caused a crash in the peloton - it was awesome! She got bounced down the embankment, but I think she was OK.)
then arrived at Banyoles, Spain for the Olympics
In his ever detailed approach, Ted put together the schedule for our preparations and sent us a schedule with the travel, dates, etc., and closed with this note in true Ted fashion with our main Goals:
The races in Amsterdam were the first and only times the Aussies were beaten - we beat them both Saturday and Sunday using our new Hatchet blades. Unfortunately, they had a few weeks to adjust their lineup and also adopt Hatchet blades before the Olympics. Video below:
If you feel like watching some more pre-Olympic rowing, this video has some good footage of the training sessions in Germany:
Euro-tour 1992 photos:
Then onto the Olympics in Barcelona.
We got closer to the Aussies, but they won again. Full race video, with the NBC “Up close & personal” segment is below:
Post race wave, medal presentation & a wave to the crowd heading back to the boathouse:
Post race with Ted:
After the 1992 Olympics
We raced together with a variety of others after the 1992 Olympics. Jeff retired from the US team. Pat, Doug, Mike, and Tom continued to race for the US:
Pat: retired after racing in the 2- at the 1994 World Championships with Tom
Doug: tried to retire after 1992, but got bored, so unreturned and made the 8+ for the 1996 Olympics
Mike: raced in the 2+ at the Worlds in 1993; went to the 2000 Olympics as a coach
Tom: bronze in the 4- at the Worlds in 1993; retired after rowing with Pat in the 2- in 1994
