Known to many as "Killer Kilpatrick," Gary Kilpatrick came to Princeton in 1971 as coach of the men's freshman lightweight crew team. In his second season, Kilpatrick led one of the most talented classes in Princeton crew history.
That year, 1972, Kilpatrick's "Firecracker Frosh" raced to an undefeated spring, destroying every boat in its path. The supremely talented teens cruised through Eastern Sprints to cap their season, elevating expectations throughout the boathouse.
The varsity crew kept pace with their younger mates out of the blocks. They jumped out to a 5-0 mark, beating Cornell and Rutgers to win the Platt Cup and defeating Penn to capture the Wood-Hammond Trophy. On May 6, the crew traveled to Cambridge, Mass., to battle Harvard and Yale in the Goldthwait Cup. As both were perennial powerhouses, Princeton had to beat the best to prove it was the best. The senior-laden team managed to outlast Yale, but finished nearly ten seconds behind the winning Crimson crew. A week later at EARC's, the Tiger boat, again lost to Harvard by a similar margin. The 1972 season ended with a certain amount of disappointment. But like a cloud-clearing in the distance, the future provided optimism, if only the winds could shift in Tigers' favor.
The spring of 2003 was more like Winter II than a floral rebirth in Princeton. The snow had spilled over from March into April, pushing back the entire schedule of April showers and May flowers. But the unseasonably cold weather and the dark and menacing clouds did not deter all of the Princeton alumni from taking a Friday afternoon stroll around campus at Reunions last May. Though it was barely half past three in the afternoon, or several hours before the "keg tents" if you were operating on P.R.S.T. (Princeton Reunions Standard Time), graduates slowly filtered in.
A father — any father — maybe twenty years out of school walked by 1901 Hall and attempted to show his obviously bored wife exactly where his dorm was freshman year. The young child in his arm squirmed to the ground, echoing his mother's sentiment. The father grimaced ever so slightly, hurt that he was unable to stay a bit longer to peer into his youth. And that is why so many come back — to recapture, even if just for a moment, that person they were four lives and seven years ago.
At the Class of 1887 Boathouse, the lowest point on campus and the furthest spot from Nassau Hall, eight men were doing just that.
The now-fifty-somethings eased the shell into the water a few minutes before four o'clock — a familiar site for the oarsmen, but this time with a different feeling. Much has changed in the last 30 years. The shells weigh half of what they used to, and the oars are an even smaller fraction of their former weight. Even the footholds in the boats are smaller (appropriately so, it turned out, as the crack squad mistakenly nabbed a women's shell from the boathouse).
But the desire and passion and grace seemed to survive it all. Even after six presidents, two wars in Iraq, an unprecedented economic boom, careers, kids and now even some kids-in-law, eight oars still rowed as one. For twenty minutes, coxswain Gregg Hamilton steered and marveled as the surprisingly fit men flew up and down Lake Carnegie as they once had.
As the boat approached the dock and slowed to a stop, the few that had come out to watch clapped and smiled, happy to have witnessed a smooth, injury-free practice. But no one in the shell moved. Kilpatrick pulled up alongside the shell in the launch and asked Hamilton if they were going to pack it in. The rain drops had just begun to fall, and the skies whispered that it might get harder before it was over.
"We're gonna work on some starting pieces," Hamilton replied. Funny thing was, he wasn't being funny. For the next 15 minutes, it rained in a way usually reserved for the Missouri flood plains and Chapter Two of the Book of Genesis. But Ark or not, these guys weren't taking cover. They worked on starts going up and down Carnegie, with Kilpatrick yelling the new start commands that, like most things, had changed since the spring of '73. Almost everything had changed. But not the grace. Not the passion. Not the virgin memories of a wondrous season.
The dirty dozen
There were eleven major players in the spring of 1973. Eleven plus Kilpatrick. Motivated and diligent though they were, the squad was among the youngest in the country in a sport where freshmen do not compete on the varsity level. Unfazed by the youth, however, Kilpatrick put out a boat heavy on talent, if light on years and weight. Tom Daley '75, then a sophomore, was the prototypical 6-foot, 4-inch string bean that Kilpatrick liked to send into battle. Daley and his six sophomore classmates made the boathouse look like a who's who at the I-Just-Got-My-First-Chest-Hair Convention.
Art Oller '73, Chris Kocher '73 and Peter Maxson '73 made up the senior trio of leadership, with Oller getting the nod as team captain. Bill Walton '74 served as the junior class' lone representative on the team. Daley, Pete McCagg, Steve Kineke, Peter Kelsey, Auty Hayne, Bob Redfern, and Hamilton were the seven 75ers.
In '73, the team's schedule barely changed from the previous year, so when it jumped out to a 6-0 record after handing Penn a 10-second loss en route to another Wood-Hammond Trophy, it was nothing that hadn't been done before. April racing was good and important, but May held the glory. The Goldthwait Cup and EARC's still loomed ahead, and the 155s (so-called because of their weight, 155 lbs.) were still playing second fiddle to the crew from Cambridge.
Where greatness begins
The time is May 5, 1973. The place is Derby, Conn. In one of the tightest finishes in Ivy League racing history, Princeton and Harvard came down the final stretch of the race for the Goldthwait Cup nose to nose, each crew praying for its shell to grow a zit at the tip and give it an edge. Yet it was without blemish that the results came back: 1. Princeton – 5:39.1; 2. Harvard – 5:39.5. Four-tenths of a second gave Princeton its first Goldthwait cup since 1957. Four-tenths of a second erased 16 years of disappointment.
A week later, the 155s returned to Worcester, Mass. to avenge their second loss from the season before. But something happened that week between May 5 and May 12. Perhaps it was the confidence from finally getting that damn Crimson Monkey off their backs. Maybe it was finally realizing how to row as a true team. Or maybe it was something that can never be put into tangible terms. But on May 12, at EARC's, the Princeton squad shed its youthful masks and became confident veterans. This time, the winning margin was a full four seconds.
But instead of reflecting on the road just traveled, the team looked ahead to a path that Princeton eyes had never seen. An invitation was extended to compete in the Thames Challenge Cup at the Royal Henley Regatta on the River Thames in England.
Now when you usually race just once a week, more than that can be a grueling test of endurance. The crew that takes the Thames Cup has to win five races in four days. Almost makes that whole Ironman competition seem like a trip to the hot tub and a neighborhood bike ride.
Henley is widely considered one of the most prestigious regattas in the world. Of course, prestige also has a knack for attracting talent, and the Thames Challenge Cup was chock-full of that.
Outweighed by as much as 30 pounds per man, the young Tigers were lean and efficient. Still, they were longshots. Many of the other crews were professional and teeming with rowers from various national teams. Accordingly, the kids from Princeton did not get the easiest draw. After a slow win in the first heat, the young squad faced possibly the toughest crew in the whole division. Christiana Roklub was a club team from Norway, and its reputation preceded it. It was bred to win at places like Henley.
As the race went on, the Norwegians pushed on the Tigers, but Hamilton had the Tigers pushing right back. The pace was blistering, but it was constant. The Norwegians simply could not shake the gritty Princeton shell. As they came down the stretch, the oarsmen responded to Hamilton's pleas, and responded better than the more acclaimed crew next to them. They responded with history. Kilpatrick would tell them when he saw them that their victory took only six minutes, 33 seconds, a new course record.
The final three races of the event were bred from the same general, boring script. Underdog, lightweight Tigers versus heavy, heavily-favored Europeans. Ever see rugby on TV? These guys get big. But one by one, Kilpatrick's boys knocked them off. The Kingston Rowing Club; the Irish Police Crew; the Thames Tradesmen.
On July 7th, Kilpatrick and Oller graciously accepted the Thames Cup. It remains to this day the only time that a crew from Princeton ever hoisted that prize.
Epilogue
It is Saturday morning in late May of 2003, nine o'clock, and the squad has no trouble getting up. Perhaps 30 years ago they might have wanted to sleep in, but those days are long gone. In the early morning haze, Kilpatrick once again watched his boys step into the shell, wearing only spandex, a teeshirt and a game face. The fairy tale ends as all do. In two races, the 73ers merely toyed with their younger competition, using superior timing and technique to win both. Thirty years later they are still undefeated.
As the weekend wound down, talk turned from celebrating and reliving their magical season. More challenges lay ahead. The last thing Kocher said as he was leaving was "See you all in two years." In 2005, Killer Kilpatrick's crew plans to enter the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's Masters Race. The IRA races are basically the United States' National Championships, and they, like Henley, attract the best. Going in, the Tigers should be in a familiar position: unknown, underdogs, and under the radar. Go ahead. Bet against them. They love that.
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