On the Water - In the Rafters

We had a late-lunch/early-dinner (1) for Mother's Day today at the Chart House restaurant on Spa Creek. Our friends, also without children - all grown and out of town - had made reservations, and as it turned out, we got a great table facing the Naval Academy across the water. Looking up in the rafters of the dining room, I spotted a crew

USNA Men's Eight - 1952 Olympics

boat commemorating a 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics victory. I did a quick Google search on my Blackberry, and saw that two United States teams won championships that year, and assumed by the size of the memorial boat, that is must have been the Men's Coxless Pairs, but was wrong - it was the Men's Eights rowing team that won. A little more digging on-line back home, and the reason for U.S. Naval Academy being written on the hull was clear - it was a USNA team that won the gold medal. Duh - I guess back then they didn't construct the most competitive teams from where ever the best eight rowers could be found. There are simple biographies for each of the team members on Wikipedia: Frank Shakespeare, William Fields, James Dubar, Richard Murphy, Robert Detweiler, Henry Procter, Wayne Frye, Edward Stevens, and coxswain Charles Manring. A detailed run down of the competition and the team members for the 50-year reunion of the event can be found by clicking here. The team was coached by Rusty Callow - a legend in his own right.
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(1) By the way, it was an excellent meal.