Sport: Losers at Last

When it was over, the Naval Academy crew hardly knew what to do. It had been so long since they lost (three years and 31 races) that the old rowing tradition of collecting the losers' shirts had become a happy habit. But last week the Middies got a reminder that that sort of shirt-shucking can work both ways. Though they rowed their hearts out on Boston's choppy Charles River, they slid past the finish line a long length and a half behind the University of Pennsylvania.

Appropriately, the Penn crew that won the Adams Cup last week was coached by Diamond Sculler Joe Burk, who learned his sweep-swing from Rusty Callow. Rusty is the man who made Navy great. He arrived at Annapolis in 1950, put in an unsuccessful year, and then watched his crews sink right out from under him—on the flood-swollen waters of the Ohio River in June 1951, three Navy shells were wrecked. But Callow and Navy did a quick salvage job. From Meilahti Gulf, Finland to Newport Beach, Calif., they won race after race, including the 1952 Olympic championship.

When defeat finally came last week, it was far from a disgrace. Navy's new and inexperienced oarsmen pushed Penn to the fastest time ever clocked on that mile-and-a-quarter course: 8:47.7. Coach Callow was not at all disheartened, for he had the makings of another great eight. Now that the Middies have learned to lose, said he, "Navy will have to start budgeting for crew shirts."