Dartmouth Varsity Heavyweight Eight Wins Callow Award

HANOVER, N.H. - The Dartmouth varsity heavyweight eight has been awarded the Russell S. Callow Memorial Award in honor of its performance during the 2010 spring season.

The Callow Award is presented each year by the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges to the crew that, in the previous year, best personified the virtues of "spirit, courage and unity." Awarded annually since 1963, the winner of the award is determined by vote of the head coaches of the EARC at their annual meeting. Rusty Callow was a legendary rowing coach, whose career spanned the first half of the 20th century. Rusty coached for many years at Washington, the University of Pennsylvania, and Navy. Among his many accomplishments, Callow coached the 1952 Navy crew to an Olympic gold medal.

Every opponent the 2010 Dartmouth varsity heavyweight eight raced was ranked in the top-10 nationally at the time of racing. After some satisfying wins and a few close early-season losses, the crew entered the Eastern Sprints seeded 12th. Dartmouth upended both that seeding and the conventional thinking of the rowing world when it outraced top-ranked Brown, sixth-ranked Syracuse, and seventh-ranked Northeastern to qualify for the EARC Grand Final, where the crew finished fifth. Dartmouth proved that its Sprints result was no fluke a week later, when the eight again defeated Syracuse, this time in Hanover, to win the Packard Cup. The inspiration carried the crew to the IRA, where it nearly qualified for the Grand Final from a barnburner of a semifinal before finishing eighth overall.

"The past few years have been exciting, especially 2010," said head coach Topher Bordeau after receiving the award on his crew's behalf. "The oarsmen have distinguished themselves with a commitment to improvement as rowers, teammates, and as members of crews on an almost constant basis. There's a capacity for inspiration that is a significant part of daily life at Dartmouth, and nowhere moreso than at the boathouse. The guys used that capacity to push through some tough times last year and to produce an inspired performance when the stakes were highest. The ability to do that has become a characteristic of rowers who thrive here, and that has made coaching this program incredibly rewarding. It's a credit to the oarsmen that their efforts have been honored by the EARC coaches."

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