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- Year:
- 1968
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- Sports Played:
- Undefeated Western Sprints Champions
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- Induction Year:
- 2016
Bio
It was a slow rise to the top in the history of Orange Coast College men’s crew in the early 1960s before the arrival of coach David Grant. A few years later, the Pirates began to find success and a winning tradition developed. After a solid third-place finish at the Western Sprints Championships in 1967, Coast put together the strongest varsity squad in the school’s history and in 1968, the Pirates dominated all of their competition. Coast set the tone for a memorable season by setting a new course record against Long Beach State, conquering the 2,000-meter Lido Channel race with a time of 6 minutes, 15 seconds, breaking the old record by a full eight seconds. Coast then took its act on the road and set a new course record at the Long Beach Regatta (6:00.3) before heading up to the University of California for the first time in school history. There, the Pirates continued to rule the waters and topped the Golden Bears by over a boat length. At the Newport Regatta, Coast hosted Loyola Marymount, UC Irvine and San Diego State and cruised to victory, nine seconds ahead of the runner-up Anteaters. At the San Diego Regatta, it was another OCC-UCI, 1-2 finish as the Pirates cruised to a 17-second victory. Against mighty UCLA, not only did the Pirates topple the Bruins, they also topped their own Lido Channel course record with a time of 6:11.5 (just under six seconds ahead of UCLA’s 6:17) and headed into the Western Sprints Championships, in Washington, with plenty of confidence. Against the best of the West, the Pirates performed at their best and in the finals against UCLA, Cal, Washington, Stanford and British Columbia, OCC topped the “big boys” with a course-record time of 6:07.2, open water ahead of the runner-up Huskies’ crew. After raising enough money to compete in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Championship in Syracuse, N.Y., Coast became the first community college to compete at the IRAs. In front of over 70,000 on the shores of Lake Onondaga, the Pirates battled the nation’s top crew, the University of Pennsylvania and other top Ivy League schools. Falling to fifth place early in the race, Coast fought back to third at the halfway point before edging out Navy and finishing just two boat lengths behind champion Penn. 1968 Orange Coast College Men’s Varsity Eight Crew – Jay Amestoy, Ron Lindsey, Phil Peterson, Cary Simonds, John Baie (Captain), Dave Halliday, Geof Strand, Jim Jorgensen, Al Pierce (Coxswain).
