A Lady Pulled In Two Directions

Set against the neatly trimmed lawns and well-kept buildings of Harvard's business school, Newell Boathouse, with its decaying gingerbread cupolas and bald shingles, looks like the misplaced summer pavilion of some mad king. Its appearance, however, is deceptive, for inside are some of the fastest racing shells in the world, and the best collegiate crew in the U.S. trains there under Harvard Coach Harry Parker. But the athletes who pull up to the boathouse at 6 a.m. on a spring morning are not the Crimson youth of crewing fame, but a motley bunch of women.

They arrive wearing sweat suits and warmup jerseys, for there is no women's locker room in Newell Boathouse. One of them is 6'3", 170 pounds, the size of Russian and East German women rowers, and she's a 25-year-old computer saleswoman named Maggie MacLean. The others average 5'8" and include Jane Lanning and Kathy Rexford, both 21, from Boston University's women's crew. Both of them competed in last year's world rowing championships at Lucerne. Sheila Dugan, 25, a Barnard graduate and national eight champion oarswoman, sports a CCCP warmup jersey and a Mao cap. It is a brainy boatload—the cox, Linda Coffman, is a pre-med student at Radcliffe, and Joanne Casper studies water resources at Princeton. From Williams come Gay Symington and Nancy Storrs, who also drives in auto rallies. Is this to be some radical confrontation on the Charles, in which outraged females will burn their oars for equal rights? Hardly. These are tough, dedicated women who meet each weekday morning to practice rowing the eight, tuning up for their ultimate goal, the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

The last crew member arrives. On the window of her aging Cougar is a large "Ducks Unlimited" decal, and next to that a sticker which proclaims that she has MIT faculty parking rights. The car belongs to Gail Pierson, 34, a woman of sharp contrasts and level-headed intelligence and an athlete of almost Renaissance breadth. Pierson smiles a stunning smile, and with her high cheekbones and sweatband she looks almost Indian. She weighs 150, stands 5'9" and has the slope-shouldered posture that indicates power and quickness in women athletes. Her handshake is as rough as a farmer's, her palms toughened by four hours a day at the oars.

If Pierson were the subject of one of those "profile" Scotch whisky ads, it might read like this:

Profession: Associate Professor of Economics, MIT.

Hobbies: national trapshooting doubles champion four times; twice All-America trap team member; twice national single sculls rowing champion; Head of the Charles regatta women's singles champion five years in a row; top-notch cross-country skier.

Most Recent Article: The Role of Money in Economic Growth.

Last Accomplishment: President, National Women's Rowing Association, 1972-74.

But such sketchy information only works in advertisements, and it is hardly more than a silhouette of Pierson. But first to business. The women have their act together and get the heavy practice shell into the river. Harry Parker arrives. This is the first time that Parker, who coaches the national collegiate championship crew, has coached a women's eight. In fact, it is the first time that a women's national rowing team has had a coach of his caliber. Parker coached the men's eight in the '72 Olympics and brought home the silver medal.

The women row sprints at varying beats. Cruising behind the shell in a Harvard launch, Parker watches the practice with a coachly eye and alternately chides and encourages his charges through a battered tin megaphone. Between sprints the women hang over their oars as Parker points out faults in the strokes of each. "Gail, try to get a little more hair on the catch," he advises.