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"Individuals developed a much greater degree of self-confidence rowing for Harry," says Tiff Wood. "You knew that you were doing it-it was your desire to win, not his desire." Hoffman adds that "You had to be doing this for yourself, and once you reached that conclusion, you had no limits because you were always working against the horizon."

THE OTHER NICKNAME.
Geoffrey Knauth, who flew airplanes, one day learned from an aviation weather report that a cold front was rapidly approaching Boston from the south and that rain would fall that afternoon. But as the crews launched from Newell for practice, the sky was clear. Knauth bet Parker that it would rain during practice; Harry insisted it would not. "We got to Magazine Beach [near the B.U. Bridge] and you could see this line of thunderclouds and intense lightning coming at us," Knauth recalls. "Harry told us to take 30 strokes toward the B.U. Bridge and wait for him there. Then he did a strange thing, something he never does. Harry stopped his launch well upstream from us and stood staring at the sky, arms akimbo. Soon a downpour began soaking Boston, almost onto Storrow Drive. It didn't rain on the river." Omnipotent.

"Everyone who ever met Harry Parker said there was some sort of aura about him," says Eric Sigward. "He was looked upon as having a Midas touch." Charley Hamlin '70, a 1969-1970 varsity oarsman and the chair of Friends of Harvard Rowing, says, "We revered him. There was not a person on the crew who didn't look on him as the ultimate coach." Al Shealy adds, "People view him as surrounded by a nimbus. He's godlike, but he's a mere mortal."

For many years, oarsmen in Newell have had another nickname for Parker: among themselves, they refer to him as "God." The sobriquet is both reverential and jocular. It does reflect awe. Parker is "distant. He is far enough away that you could worship him," says Ted Tsomides. "If he were more of a friend, he'd be less of a deity." Gordie Gardiner '79, who rowed on the 1977-79 varsities, reflects that Parker is "mercurial. He doesn't always explain what he's doing, he just does it. You don't completely understand what's going on in his head, but you trust what comes out of it."

David Weinberg '74, varsity coxswain from 1972 to 1974, recalls how, late during one practice, stroke Al Shealy's oarlock broke and could not be repaired. "Harry came over with his launch and Shealy got out of the boat. We had to row the last mile of the workout with only seven guys. With no stroke, I was facing the #7 man, who of course sat a couple of feet farther away. Harry leaned over to me with his megaphone and said, `Dave, you should do well-you know, the key to authority is distance.'" Weinberg believes that by remaining somehat aloof, Parker made his selection of oarsmen as fair as possible: "He could never be accused of favoritism, or subjectivity." Shealy adds that "the hallmark of any great coach or leader is keeping a distance. It's necessary to develop a mystique, whether consciously or unconsciously. Harry has done that to a T. There is a certain inscrutability about him. I don't know Harry all that well. With him, you open the door only part way."

THE TAPER.
Few athletes or coaches recognize certain subtle aspects of coaching. Fewer still cultivate them. Take, for example, the art of calling a day off. Peter Raymond recalls that when he was training under Parker for the 1972 Olympic Games, "Some days, I would get up and know that I was gearing myself up for a workout that would be very hard to get through-a session where I'd be losing more than I gained. Inevitably, we would have the day off. Harry understood things in a way I didn't."

In the days just before a race, athletes generally reduce their workouts to build energy for competition: this process is called "tapering." Carie Graves describes Parker as "a master of the taper. I've never had anyone get me ready for a race the way he did. When you got to the starting line you were God-you were omnipotent. I felt that way in '76: like the perfect human being. It's the best. Many coaches can't taper. They get nervous before a race and wear the crew out practicing racing starts. It's a rare talent."

Knauth recalls the energy that would intensify before the Yale race: "Because of the taper, you just want to grab an oar….People get so aggressive, they want to smash chairs, they start wrestling with each other. Then Harry says, `No, no, no-save it.' When you get to the starting line you just want to explode at the start to get it out of your system. The maniacal desire to break something really helps when you're trying to win a close race."

THE PHOTO FINISH.
Look at the Harvard crew's record over the last few decades: the thing you'll find missing is the big loss-the crucial race where Harvard came up a bit short. It doesn't happen that way; it's the other crew that falls short. The examples are the stuff of rowing lore. In 1968, at the Olympic trials in Long Beach, California, Harvard had a showdown with Penn, after having beaten the Quakers twice that spring. Parker was facing his mentor Burk, who was one year away from retirement. The two boats stayed close all the way down the 2,000-meter course, the lead seesawing back and forth with each stroke over the last 200 meters. With a thunderous sprint-and stroke Art Evans '69 "going crazy at the end," in Hobbs's words-Harvard won by .05 seconds in a photo finish-and so went on to the Olympic Games.

Then there was the 1979 Yale race, when Harvard, stroked by Gordie Gardiner, was outweighed by at least 12 pounds per man and trailed by open water after one mile; the Harvard eight slowly reeled in the Yale boat and won by half a length. "I've never seen a braver effort by a crew," says Graves, who witnessed the race. "I was in tears, it was such a moving experience." The following year against Yale, Harvard was behind by one and a half lengths with a mile and half to go; they again came back to win. "It was a matter of not collapsing," recalls Charlie Altekruse, who rowed at #6 in the race. Then there was the national championship at Cincinnati in 1983, when Washington had a boat-length lead and Harvard, behind stroke Andy Sudduth '83, won by a couple of feet.

A 2,000-meter rowing race generally lasts between five and six minutes. When margins of victory are under one second, probability suggests that a given crew should win about half these races and lose the other half. That is emphatically not the case when Harvard is one of the two crews. Harvard seems to win almost all its close races-which are big races by definition, since they reflect the fastest competition. Over the years, Harry Parker's crews have won 20 races by what seems like a total of 100 feet. Random chance cannot explain this.

"The boat that wins close races often is the boat that is coming from behind, not the boat that is being closed upon," says Campbell Rogers '83, M.D. '88, a 1982-83 varsity rower. "We did a lot of work on finishing very fast, which got more emphasis than starting. The Harvard race plan has always been: Don't worry about getting ahead early, keep a steady pace, then finish extremely hard. Most crews are not coached that way. Facing Harvard, they are usually the underdogs; they'd start extremely hard, get a lead and then get overexcited, and expend themselves in the middle 1,000 meters trying to stay ahead."

THE POWERHOUSE STRETCH.
There is another factor involved in Harvard's blistering finishes. Tiff Wood suggests that "every individual has a way of rowing that will be most effective for that person. You can try and make them all row the same, but perhaps the real trick is to find people who row effectively in their own way." While certain technical elements-like having all the oar blades catch the water at once-are universal requirements, Parker may insist less on technical uniformity than other coaches do.

Recall Fritz Hobbs's description of stroke Art Evans "going crazy" in the 1968 Olympic trial. "There are certain coaches who, if you start to go nuts-to do things that are stylistically odd, trying to make the boat go fast-they'll stop you from doing it. Their emphasis is on `not having technique deteriorate,'" says Wood. "With Harry, you can throw all caution to the winds as long as you are able to make the boat go while doing it-it's OK to go nuts. Consider what in weightlifting they call `recruitment.' It means learning to use other muscles that are nearby, or are related to, the muscle you are working on a certain lift. You may do something like recruitment at the end of a race: however inefficient it may be, you just want to get a little more horsepower on that oar. Harry's oarsmen have done more experimenting with those inefficient but short-term-effective strategies. When the whole crew does it, things aren't falling apart-we're going nuts! And that's OK!"

Thus, in the heat of the race, the Harvard oarsmen may not be enacting any ideal of form or technique. Rather, they are in a state of abandon; they are most vehemently expressing themselves. And it is the disciplined expression of self-not of technique-that wins races.

THE RELEASE.
Parker shows no sign of slowing down, and in fact he has reached a state of mastery that can handle virtually any challenge the sport has to offer. His intensity has not dimmed, though his personal style seems to have mellowed in recent years. Many attribute this to his happy second marriage-to Kathy Keeler, a rower and gold medalist at the 1984 Olympics-and to the birth of their daughter, Abagail, in 1994. The toddler has been a frequent presence in Newell, and she is a true source of delight to her 60-year-old father. Parker remains fit and energetic, but says he has no illusions about coaching forever: "I'll retire if it's not fun, or if I feel I'm not being as effective as I ought to be."

That day seems a long way off. Harold Lambert Parker appears to be having more fun than ever. Since 1990, Harvard's record is 23-7, including an undefeated season and national championship in 1992. After a four-year skein of Yale wins, Harvard has won the annual Harvard-Yale race every year since 1985, bringing Parker's record in that regatta to 29-4. It all began on that Sunday in 1963, when Yale, and the rest of the world, simply didn't know what they were up against.

Craig A. Lambert '69, Ph.D. '78, is an associate editor of this magazine. He is a member of Cambridge Boat Club and is a single sculler with a greater reputation for wit than speed.

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