'Cliffe Crew Summer: The Road to Moscow

BACK IN THE Forties one of the most popular and successful creations in the film world was the "road" movie. In these films Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour thrilled movie audiences with reel after reel of celluloid adventures and misadventures. Such cinematic tidbits as The Road to Rio and The Road to Hong Kong, along with a raft of "roads" to other exotic and far-away places, saturated the movie market with innocent and plotless travelogues.

Eventually, for one reason or another, the road movie died out. Perhaps it was a gradual waning in viewer interest for travel stories that caused the demise of the road movie. Or maybe it was simply the wholesale depletion of the number of interesting places left to visit. But whatever the cause, road movies passed out of the active film world to live out a peaceful retirement as staples of the late, late, late show.

Today, if the powerful Hollywood moviemakers who rode the crest of the "road" phenomenon to success at the box office wanted to revive this form of film entertainment, they could well begin right here in Cambridge. The movie would be called "The Road to Moscow," and it would integrate the forties travel motif that brought Hope, Crosby and Lamour fame and fortune with a seriousness of purpose quite alien to the fluff and whimsy that characterized earlier efforts.

Of course, the original format would have to be altered somewhat to tell the Cambridge "road" story. Instead of three lead players there would be ten, instead of two men and a woman, there would be one man and nine women. But before you call the censors, you must realize, of course, that the nine women are members of the Radcliffe crew, and the man, John Baker, is their coach.

The trip, which culminated in a seventh-place finish at the European Games August 23-26 in Moscow, began on the fetid waters of the Charles last Fall. In the 12 months that ensued, the Radcliffe road story took the team up and down the East Coast, to St. Catharine's in Ontario, to London and Nottingham, England, and, finally, to Moscow.

Last year Radcliffe transformed its low-key rowing program into one of championship calibre. Baker, who rowed for the men's heavyweight varsity when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, brought the strenuous no-nonsense tactics of men's rowing to Radcliffe.

The result was phenomenal, if not utterly unbelievable. Over the course of the Spring schedule, Radcliffe lost only one race, by a scant one-second margin to Princeton, during the early part of the season. But from there on, the 'Cliffe amassed an incredible succession of victories. The varsity eight even vindicated the sole setback of the season, humbling Princeton by a substantial margin in taking the Eastern Women's Sprint title in May.

But the sprint victory, usually the culmination of the season for most teams, was just the beginning for Radcliffe. In June the 'Cliffe captured the national women's rowing title with a swift 3:15.4 clocking over 1000 meters.

THE NATIONAL title won Radcliffe the right to represent the United States in the European games in August. And to prepare for the challenge of competing with the cream of the world rowing crop, Baker set up a rigorous schedule for Radcliffe over the summer.

In July Radcliffe began its competitive trip on the "Moscow Road." At St. Catharine's, Ontario for the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta, the 'Cliffe met ten other teams (six from the U.S.) and won another convincing truimph. But not without some harrowing moments.

In the Friday heats, the 'Cliffe's new boat experienced difficulty with the 30 mph winds and the chop that dotted the course with whitecaps. In the preliminary race, water sloughed in at an alarming rate over the sides of the low slung boat. By the end of the race, the 'Cliffe eight had shipped five inches of water in the bottom of the craft, and finished behind Vesper, barely qualifying for the finals.

At the end of the race, fearing a possible sinking, all nine crew members abandoned ship and swam ashore.

The next day, just an hour before the finals, the wind miraculously dropped, leaving a smooth course for the final competition. Encouraged by this auspicious change in conditions, Radcliffe stormed to a victory by a length of open water.

"It was like someone had made a phone call upstairs, the way the weather changed," Baker said last week. "And when we won after the first day's episode, the crowd really went bananas."

On August 11 Radcliffe went to England, busing inland to Nottingham, where they trained for ten days. On August 20 they returned to London to join the United States team en route to the Europeans.

Once in Moscow, the competition began in earnest. Radcliffe got a break when the top three teams, Russia, Rumania, and East Germany, drew the same heat in the preliminaries. Nevertheless, the 'Cliffe finished fourth in its heat. Bulgaria finished first in the Radcliffe heat, and joined Russia as automatic finalists.

The second day of racing pitted the six non-winners from the first day's two heats against each other, with the first four qualifying for the finals.

Radcliffe started well in the race, and a third of the way through, led both Poland and Czechoslovakia. But unfortunately, the 'Cliffe eight pulled a couple of crabs at the 500 meter mark, which was just enough to set them behind the rest of the closely-knit field. Radcliffe finished last and, along with the Czechs, failed to make the finals. Rumania, East Germany, Poland, and Hungary joined the Russians and Bulgarians in the finals the next day.

THE NEXT DAY, Radcliffe and Czechoslovakia squared off in the "petite finale." And after battling the wind for 45 minutes at the start, the 'Cliffe jumped off to a three to four seat lead after the first ten strokes. At that point, the Czech boat inexplicably turned into the Radcliffe lane, causing the entire race to be called back.

Then, after battling the wind some more, officials decided not to run the race at all. But Radcliffe and the Czechs agreed to race on their own, unofficially at least, to settle things. Radcliffe again jumped to a quick lead, and at 500 meters had a length margin. At that point the Czech team quit, and Radcliffe paddled home the rest of the way, an easy winner.

Despite the disappointment of finishing seventh out of eight teams, Radcliffe was not demoralized by its performance. "It was really an amazing showing to go over there and do as well as we did," Baker said last weeks. "Every race was closely fought, and even though we came in seventh, our time was only about 10 seconds behind the first-place Russians."

Baker stressed that the major element working against Radcliffe was inexperience. "We really weren't much behind the class teams from Russia and East Germany," he said. "It's just that we didn't really believe in ourselves as much as we needed to to succeed in international competition. But next year there will be the World Championships and we'll be back and ready."

It would make a great "road" movie. And from all indications it could have as many repeats as its late show predecessors.