Some of the Best Athletes in this Regatta are Among the Slowest

Grand Veterans Still Going Strong into their 80s

They have lived through the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement and a worldwide pandemic. The youngest of them were born in the earliest days of World War II and they are now in their 80s and still rowing – some for thrill of the competition and others for the wonder of the water.

“I don’t race to win. I race to participate, to just get involved and be a part of something,” said Joan Campbell, 85, who won her first Head of the Charles medal in the Women’s Grand Veteran II singles on Friday morning. “At 50, I wanted to show my children I wasn’t over the hill. No one told me, however, that it was a tall person’s sport, but I kept doing it anyway.”

 

Campbell’s fellow Cambridge Boat Club members Henry Hamiltion, 81, and Ben Jones, 83, (Jones, L, and Hamilton, R, in the photo above) are definitely in it for the competition. They finished first and second in the Grand Veteran I race.  “Henry and I have been racing together for 55 years, trading races one after the other,” said Jones. “I beat him last year and he got me this year.”

They have each raced in 56 of the 57 Head of the Charles regattas. Jones missed the inaugural race in 1965. Hamilton missed the second, in 1966. “I was in an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam,” he said.

Though they both thrive on the competition, it is the rowing itself that has kept them involved over the decades.

“We get a reward every stroke,” says Hamilton, an eight-time winner of the Head of the Charles. “It’s a really beautiful sensation in passing and being on the water. We’re mostly water,” he quips, “we can relate to it.”

Jones too has never tired of how the sport makes him feel. “I loved it – I liked the training because it looks so repetitive but every stroke is different,” he said. “You get to have the feel of your hands in the water, the way your legs move is different.”

Watching the 80-year-olds came up the river Friday morning, wearing his signature University of Pennsylvania letter sweater, was Head of the Charles legend Richard Kendall, 92. Kendall has more than a dozen Head of the Charles championship medals to his name. Like Hamilton and Jones, he was winning them deep into his 80s. Like Hamilton and Jones, his competitive streak is what kept him on the water for all those years.

“I just like to compete – I’m just very good at it,” said Kendall. “The thing is, rowing consists of balance and timing. And in order to balance, there’s all kinds of micro muscles that you have to use to keep that boat level. I just find that once you finish up, you just have that glow about you – it’s just a great thing overall.”

The time on the stopwatch might be slower than it was decades ago. But the experience is every bit as satisfying. “It’s a larger community on the water,” says Campbell, as she stands surrounded by generations of family and friends, “but it’s still the same spirit.”

 

EDITORS NOTE: Missing from this story, but not from the winner’s circle is Jan Stone of the Pocock Rowing Center of Seattle, who won her seventh Head of the Charles in a row in Women’s Grand Veteran I race.