1990 men’s rowing team still unmatched 30 years later

Jeff Pesot controlled the tempo, refusing to increase the stroke rate from Syracuse’s typical 36 per minute. He needed another school to make a move first. Through the first 500 meters of the 1990 Intercollegiate Rowing Association varsity regatta, that didn’t happen, and SU remained in front. 

Penn and Wisconsin weren’t far behind, while Brown, Navy and Cornell settled into the final three spots. The Orange last medaled at the IRAs in 1984, and this group of seniors had been building up to this point their whole college careers. All six boats raced through unusually rough Onondaga Lake waves, and at the 750-meter mark, both the Badgers and Quakers burst toward the Syracuse boat.

Coxswain Jon Parella urged the Orange to hold on. Dirk Stribrny watched as the bow of Penn’s boat passed Pesot, then seven-man Allan Green, then five-man Don Smith until the two schools were practically even. By the halfway mark, it was a three-boat race, with Penn, Wisconsin and Syracuse all positioning themselves for the final 500-meter straightaway down the Erie Canal.

In what became Syracuse’s last medal at the IRA, it relied on a core group of four rowers in the class of 1990 that had trained and rowed together all four years. They showed immediate promise as freshmen, seasoned themselves as sophomores and juniors and slowly prepared for a final accomplishment that remains unmatched in the Orange’s rowing program to this day.

“What’s endured about the sport of rowing is what it takes to be successful,” current head coach Dave Reischman said. “And nobody embodied that more than the 1990 crew.”

• • •

Head coach Bill Sanford grew more and more frustrated as the freshman boat pulled away. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Ideally, the first varsity boat would “hunt down” the “rabbit” and cruise ahead toward the dock. 

It was a September 1986 exercise, and all three Syracuse boats were returning down the Erie Canal from a couple mile race on Onondaga Lake. Sanford had given the freshman boat — including Green, Pesot, Smith and Stribrny — a 10-second head start, and expected it to evaporate by the end.

“They were good,” Pesot said, “But we had a chip on our shoulder.”

Sanford looked on as the first varsity boat, the one supposed to capture an IRA title the following June, failed to catch up. The freshmen won by such a wide margin that they had enough time to get out of the boat and watch the other two boats arrive.

There was Pesot, “the maverick,” Smith, the tallest of the group at 6-foot-8, Colin Goodale, an Englishman, Green, a sculler for the U.S. junior national team, Steve Locke, who previously competed at St. Andrew’s (Rhode Island) School, and Stribrny, one of the smallest among those trying out at 6-foot-1.

They came into a program with a history of winning, despite just one Intercollegiate Rowing Associate varsity title (1978) since the 1910s. Syracuse itself was a hegemon of college athletics in the 1986-87 season. Football went 11-0 and tied Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, men’s basketball faced Indiana in the national championship and the lacrosse program welcomed freshman twins named Gary and Paul Gait.

“The mentality of guys my age group and kind of Syracuse was we worked really hard,” Smith said. “We wanted to win really bad.”

The 1990 Syracuse rowing team’s accomplishments are still remembered to this day. Courtesy of Dirk Stribrny

Despite a more laid-back practice schedule in the fall, Smith went on four or five-mile runs after practice. Stribrny trained to up his weight from the 160-pound limit he rowed at as a lightweight. Their efforts convinced Sanford to bring a freshman boat to the Head of the Charles in Boston — the premier regatta of the fall season. There, they made the freshman finals in their first true race together. 

“We were really discovering ourselves,” Smith said. “That was when we discovered we could be good.”

The rowers ran up and down all 70 flights of Carrier Dome steps that winter, tested their strength on ergometers, raced each other on rowing tanks and did heavy weight training regularly. There was seldom a day where SU didn’t practice twice, yet few workouts the coaches assembled were the same.

“Those guys were really good at what they did,” Stribrny said. “They would get us to a point where we were in the best shape in our lives come the beginning of the spring season.” 

Syracuse started practicing on the water later in the spring than any of the other top programs, including rival Navy, simply due to weather. Going into the 1987 season, Navy had won the Goes Trophy — a dual race between Cornell, Syracuse and the Midshipmen — eight-straight years. Their coach, Rick Clothier, won three IRA varsity titles and eight team national titles in his 38 years with the Midshipmen. But his success came with a propensity to push the boundaries of the sports’ rules and ethics. “He was a difficult guy to like,” Sanford said.

With about 600 meters to go in the freshman race, the two boats were dead even with the Big Red lagging behind. As they neared the Long Branch Road Bridge underneath Interstate 90, Syracuse made a move. “Game’s over. Navy’s out of quarters. Here we go,” freshman coach Larry Laszlo recalls Pesot saying, just loud enough for the SU boat to hear.

Pesot’s reference to the arcade games the guys often played in dorm lobbies before practice did its job. Syracuse pulled ahead and won the freshman title for the first time “in a long time,” Laszlo said. Navy won their ninth-straight varsity Goes Cup, but SU’s freshman class was on the rise — one that went undefeated in the regular season and placed third in the Stewards Cup, the freshman final at the 1987 IRAs.

“I knew they had something when we won the Goes Cup, or our version, the freshman race of the Goes Cup, with Jeff stroking,” Laszlo said. “Those guys just sort of rallied around his call.”

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In their second season, the core of Pesot, Smith, Stribrny and Green went right into the first varsity boat. The Orange finally claimed the Goes Trophy from Navy on Cayuga Lake in the spring and collected a number of other schools’ letters in 1988, winning the Conlan Cup over Boston University for the first time and the Packard Cup over Dartmouth for the eighth time that decade.

“There is no better feeling after you train for six months straight … than the (opponent) come over and find you and congratulate you and actually hand you the shirt off his back,” Stribrny said. “Can you imagine a lacrosse player loses a game and has to come over and give the shirt off his back?”

SU failed to make the podium in both major regattas, the Eastern Sprints and IRAs, but earned an invitation to the Henley Regatta, on the River Thames in London. From June 5, 1988 until July 3, the Orange trained in the morning and at night. In the “dining hall,” which doubled as Sanford’s living room, they ate food provided by Peter’s Groceries — now Tops supermarket. Then, they would have the rest of the day to occupy themselves. The rowers played foosball, volleyball and even made a Saturday Night Live sketch of the team. At night, the 30 or so guys there crammed into bunk beds before doing it all again the next day.

At Henley, the Orange beat UCLA in a dual race by two-thirds of a length. The following day, they faced the British National team, who beat them handily while 20,000 fans cheered on the home team. They learned they could push their stroke rate up to 40 per minute in rhythm, something they didn’t have enough time to perfect during a regular two-month season.

“They were in the 30s, the high 30s which means 38-39,” Sanford said, “And I didn’t have any other crews that could do that except that ‘78 (IRA championship boat) on given conditions.”

• • •

The Orange’s season was less dominant in 1989, but it positioned Syracuse well for the following year. Fourteen rowers rotated through the first varsity boat that failed to reach the IRA finals. Navy won the Goes Trophy back in Annapolis, albeit by having their coxswain use a whistle to distract SU’s boat — something that’d “never been done before,” Sanford said.

As Syracuse approached its annual season-opening race against Rutgers, the 1990 boat was complete. Pesot, having made a mid-season switch, at stroke, Green at seven, then six-foot-six junior Chris Ludden, then Smith, then sophomore Mike Love, then Locke — back with the program after a two-year absence — Goodale, Stribrny at bow and Parella at coxswain.

The six seniors mirrored their freshman success and went undefeated in the dual meets leading up to Navy once again. Syracuse hadn’t won two Goes Trophies in three years since the 1950s. Sanford hadn’t forgotten Clothier’s gamesmanship, either.

Navy had the upper hand for most of it, stretching its lead all the way to a length. As the two boats neared the Long Branch Road Bridge, Pesot readied the SU boat for another epic push. This time, though, they had help.

Sanford had some “spare” rowers go underneath the bridge with Syracuse’s giant “victory bell.” As the two boats passed under I-90, the backups banged the bell. Navy “almost jumped out of their boat” while SU surged forward. With 200 meters remaining, the boats were “deck-on-deck,” Smith said. The Orange ultimately prevailed by one seat. Clothier had left the trophy in Annapolis, assuming the Midshipmen would win again, Pesot said.

SU’s varsity boat swept the cup races for the second time in three years. They entered the Eastern Sprints ranked fourth in the country, but the Orange were upset by BU — the same team they won the Conlan Cup from a month earlier — and failed to make the finals.

“We just took it lightly,” Pesot said. “Thought we were going to cruise right there to the final and win it, and we just took our eye off the ball there for six minutes one afternoon.”

That left the IRA regatta, back home on Onondaga Lake. Wisconsin and Penn won their preliminary heats comfortably while Syracuse had to get in via repechage. Two days later, as a setting sun peeked through the overcast sky, it was Syracuse, Penn and Wisconsin with 1,000 meters to go.

Parella called for SU to up the stroke rate to 40, imploring them to hold off the top two boats in the country. First Wisconsin moved through them, then Penn. The Orange finished third at 5:59.1. The eight Syracuse oarsmen struggled to sit upright, exit the boat and will themselves towards the podium. But 30 years later, they’re not remembered for their collapse. Instead, they’ve etched a legacy as the last SU boat to medal in the IRA grand final.

“To this day, I never had a team that showed that much heart as that team did in 1990 in the final race,” Sanford said. “If any team of any sport or any individual in any individual sport could ever duplicate that, they would win.”