Harry Parker Honored on the Charles

Rowers of many generations reunited at Harvard on Saturday morning, August 17, to get into racing shells and row past Newell Boathouse in honor of their mentor, the late Harry Parker. Many were wearing the same shirts they had rowed in as collegians, a tribute, in part, to how meaningful their crew experience under Parker had been. A number of rowing luminaries joined them on the dock, including Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Ivanov, the Russian single sculler who won Olympic gold medals in 1956, 1960, and 1964; Parker, too, rowed in the 1960 Games, finishing fifth behind Ivanov. 

That afternoon, many of the rowers gathered for a memorial service for Parker at Memorial Church, followed by a “Henley style” tea reception on the banks of the Charles River.

For more about Parker, see Letters, in the new September-October issue, and this report by Boston Globe sportswriter John Powers ’70.