Today, Bancroft says, the Friends "have come so far we don't even think if it's a women's crew or not." As an example, he points to Devin Mahony '86, a woman who is the coxswain for the men's varsity heavyweight crew. She is officially listed as a member of the Harvard crew team, while other female rowers are members of the Radcliffe team.

The chairmen of the Friends of Rowing say they think merging was a good idea because it avoids the bureaucratic problem of having two organizations do half jobs. "For me, it was not so much a question of Title IX," says Bancroft, "as much as it was a question of how to raise the most money for Harvard Rowing. That's our job."

Fundraisers for the Friends of Track and Field agree. "We didn't see the distinction between the men's and women's programs," Rittenberg says. "We looked at the women's program and it looked like one which deserved our support."

Some Rich Friends

The Friends of Rowing has been able to maintain its high level of amenities by supporting an endowment which sets it "in a class by itself," Bertagna says. He would not comment on why the endowment, which nears $1 million, is so large but adds that "crew is not a blue-collar sport." While that $1 million endowment generates about $30,000 every year for the rowers, Bancroft says, the Friends annually raise another $30,000 or so in contributions.

The Friends of Rowing, founded more than 30 years ago to ensure that Harvard's oldest sports team was well equipped and had the opportunity to travel, has been able to fund all trips and vacation practices which the crew has needed, Coach Parker says.

With an estimated $60,000 available each year, Friends of Rowing can, for instance, purchase brand new shells for the teams. This year the alumni group spent $12,000 for a shell which will be dedicated to J. Paul Austin '37--and then contributed another $2000 for a pair of oars. In addition, they have sent crew teams overseas for competitions like the World Championships in Moscow in 1973. The friends also pay for the cost of meals--at $60 a head--over spring break when the crew teams stay in Cambridge for practices. As far as recruiting high school seniors, Bancroft says, "we don't get into that game at all."

The Friends' expendituresvary from year to year depending on the success of Harvard's crews. The Friends could spend as much as $30,000 in a year to cover travel expenses alone, Bancroft says. The most expensive junket the teams took was in 1979 when the Friends sent a crew team to Egypt to race on the Nile against Yale and the Cairo Police.

But the traditional bureaucratic paperwork involved with running a large rowing program is taken care of by the Harvard Varsity Club, Bertagna says. The Varsity Club acts as "a clearinghouse" for the Friends, sending letters, acknowledging contributions, and organizing functions for the athletes-turned-contributors. "It's not the most exciting position in the world," Bertagna says but it makes the Friends more than someone you "just write a check to."

Crew is a special sport for Harvard partly because the first Harvard-Yale crew race, held on August 3, 1852, was the first inter-collegiate event in America, the Varsity Club director says. Harvard won that race by four lengths, but thanks in part to the Friends of Harvard Rowing, has stayed way ahead of other collegiate rowing programs ever since.