Rowing, according to Harry Parker, has always been one of the most amateur of the Olympic sports. Unlike some of the others, it doesn't have as much money poured into it and isn't managed by TV schedules. Thus, collegiate rowers have often had the best opportunities to compete at the games. Indeed, from 1920-65, the games were often won by university crews. That all began to change in the fifties and sixties and in 1972 the national team was formed.
Parker began rowing as a undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. Some members of his crew had at the time Olympic aspirations, but they didn't do all that well and the coach decided not to go for it. Then, a few years later after the Soviet's successful launch of Sputnik, the government decided they had to do something to beat the Russians and decided on training an Olympic team. At the time Parker was in the Navy and as an ex-rower he was approached with an offer to be returned home so he could start training. To compete with the Russians (by mirroring what they were doing), in violation of Olympic regulations at the time, he was a professional athlete and continued to receive his Navy salary for training. He estimates that nearly a third of the American Olympic athletes were in the military or trained by them, a practice he assumes continues today.
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