The city of Miami declared last Wednesday “Harry Parker Day,” recognizing esteemed men’s heavyweight head coach Harry Parker.

Miami: The city of the ’72 Dolphins, Dwyane Wade, and…Harry Parker?

Miami Beach City Commissioner Jerry Libbin seems to hope so, as he declared Jan. 20 “Harry Parker Day” in the city to thank Harvard’s heavyweight head coach for bringing his (and Radcliffe’s) crews to the Ronald W. Shane Center for a winter training trip.

Of all of Parker’s accomplishments, this may have been the most surprising.

Arguably the most recognizable name in rowing, Parker has won pretty much everything at the collegiate level —starting with eight official national championships.

He also won eight “unofficial” national championships in which his crews beat all the best teams (of course, if this were BCS football, those titles wouldn’t need the “unofficial” label).

In addition, he’s taken home 25 Eastern Sprints varsity eight titles (including every single year between 1964 and 1970) and gone undefeated in the dual season 20 times since 1963. In the process, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated (1965) and had a boat house named after him (the Harry Parker Boathouse dedicated in 2008).

I could go on and on, talking about his Olympic experience, his accomplishments in single scull, and his success against Yale (“The Race” predates “The Game” by the way).

But why should I extol my admittedly-biased opinion when I can let Elaine Roden, executive director of the Shane Center, do the talking?

“Harry is a legend,” she said. “Anyone involved in rowing has heard of Harry Parker.”

That kind of visibility, Roden hopes, will bring crews to Miami Beach in the future.

But publicity aside, Roden felt that Parker’s accomplishments stood as reason enough to get his own day in Miami.

“We wanted to acknowledge that this amazing rowing legend was here,” Roden said.

Now Miami has a day celebrating a sports legend most in the city have never heard of. So just what exactly does this mean for the city?

Parker’s fame among the casual Floridian sports fan probably won’t increase too much.

Don’t expect people to replace Dwayne Wade jerseys with Harvard crew unis (you don’t want them to, trust me) or to watch Eastern Sprints instead of the NBA Playoffs.