"Everyone is getting itchy," Hirsch said. "We want another shot at those teams. All the guys in the boat that were there last year to lose to Princeton by two hundredths of a second want another chance. We are really excited."
The team is looking strong and has been getting faster over the last couple of weeks. Coach Butt has again prepared the team for a challenge from Yale and Princeton, even for the possibility of being coachless if a child is brought into the world--he and his wife are expecting.
Could there be a better gift from a team to a coach than a national title?
Heavyweights
The heavyweight season has not been as impressive as that of the lightweights, but Harvard's program is still consistently among the best in the country.
At the outset of the spring season it was clear that the Crimson was not considered among the nation's elite.
The heavyweights kicked things off in San Diego and were beaten by Yale--as well as six other teams. Washington took the title with a time of 6:06.98. Harvard came in at 6:25.37.
The team slowly but surely improved. Harvard was edged out by three seconds in its next race against Brown, and was defeated by Princeton by seven seconds a week later. Harvard did take this opportunity to pound the overmatched MIT boat, which finished 46 seconds behind Princeton.
The Crimson notched its first win of the season the next week in a race against Penn and Navy. This race showed how far the heavyweights had come.
In the San Diego Classic, Penn had finished third in a time of 6:14.36--more than eleven seconds faster than Harvard. This time Harvard defeated Penn by a 1.8 second margin--a remarkable 13 second improvement. Navy was a distant third.
Harvard faltered the next week in its matchup with Northeastern, losing by a second. However, the Eastern Sprints would allow Harvard a modicum of revenge.
Clearly in the second tier of the grand finals, Harvard was able to avenge the previous week's defeat by edging Northeastern by 4.4 seconds. Harvard also gained revenge against a strong Wisconsin boat that had finished fourth in San Diego.
Still the Crimson finished six seconds behind eventual champions Princeton and were never really in contention.
However, the Crimson's 33-year streak in the Grand Finals of Sprints is impressive--impressive like the Boston Bruins streak of over 30 years in the playoffs. Most Bostonians would agree that the streak is nice, but a Stanley Cup would be nicer.
Heavyweight crew would probably agree that a moment at the peak would be a welcome change.