14 September 2023

By Göran R Buckhorn

Andrew Blinn Larkin, M.D., member of the legendary 1968 Harvard eight died on 11 August, aged 75.

Andrew “Andy” Larkin was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on 20 September 1946, the son of John C. Larkin, M.D., and Alice Blinn Larkin, a nurse. John Larkin, a radiologist, was a member of the first group of American scientists allowed into Nagasaki to study the devastated consequences of the second atomic bomb dropped over Japan on 9 August 1945. Hearing stories of the terrible destruction, Andy’s feelings would forever be against any war.

Andy was educated at Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, where he became a distance runner despite being diagnosed with polio at a young age. After graduating from Taft, Andy attended Harvard College, and with his 6’5” height he was soon placed in the 6 seat in the Crimson heavyweight eight. The crew, coached by a young Harry Parker, went almost undefeated during the mid-1960s. Andy rowed in the U.S. eight at the 1966 World Championships in Bled, Yugoslavia, but the boat never reached the A-final. At home, Parker’s crew won the Eastern Championships in 1966, 1967 and 1968, and took the gold medal at the 1967 Pan American Games. The same year, the American eight went to the European Championships in Vichy, France, to claim the silver medal after West Germany, who were coached by legendary Karl Adam.

The 1968 Olympic trials at Long Beach, California, became a thrilling race between the Harvard crew and Penn. The famous sportswriter Roger Angell, who witnessed the race, wrote a splendid article for The New Yorker (10 August 1968). I have earlier written about Angell’s article, so please allow me to quote myself:

At the 500-metre mark, Penn was in the lead by one second of number two, Vesper, and one and a half second to third-placed Harvard. Half down the course Vesper faltered, and it became a two-boat race between the Philadelphia and Cambridge crews, with Penn still in the lead by a couple of seats. “The shells surged towards us up the bright water, quicker and larger, bending and reaching together, and we were all on our feet and shouting,” Angell wrote.

Harvard was getting closer to Penn, and both crews crossed the finish line together, “…and there was no way—absolutely no way—to tell which [crew] had won,” Angell wrote. After a seven-minute wait, the photo-finish showed Harvard were first over the line. The winning margin was four inches, the time difference was five one-hundredth of a second, or 0:00.05, which is the title of Angell’s article.

Winning the trials at Long Beach earned the Harvard crew the right to represent the United States on Lake Xochimilco at the Mexico City Games. The Americans reached the A-Final where the crew ended up in sixth place.

The Games in Mexico City are remembered not only for the sport events but also for activities outside the arenas. The movement Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) did not want South Africa and Rhodesia invited to the Olympics due to these countries’ racist politics, and black athletes wanted actions taken against the racial inequality outside and inside sports in the USA. It peaked when the U.S. sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith stood on the medal podium with the arms raised which came to be known as the Black Power salute – read more about the OPHR in Greg Denieffe’s brilliant February 2016 HTBS article here.

The OPHR was supported by some white athletes, including the Harvard eight. About the Mexico Olympics, the OPHR and the problems their coach Harry Parker and the crew met after the race and after they came back to the USA, Andy Larkin wrote in his well-penned and interesting book My Life in Boats, Fast and Slow (2018) – read Bill Miller’s review of Andy’s autobiography here.

In Andy’s book is a letter dated 5 November 1968 from Douglas F. Roby, president of the United States Olympic Committee, to Harry Parker. In between “Dear Mr. Parker” and “Sincerely yours”, Roby lashes out at the Harvard coach for his and his crew’s support of the black athletes at the Mexico City Games and ridicules the Harvard crew’s performance in the A-final of the eights. Roby wraps up his letter to Parker by writing:

As a boy I had great admiration and respect for Harvard and the men it produced. Certainly serious intellectual degeneration has taken place in this once great University if you and several members of your crew are examples of the type of men that are within its walls.

In June 2021, British Sky Sports News showed a documentary about OPHR with interviews of John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Andy Larkin, Harvard cox Paul Hoffman and Peter Norman, the Australian who shared the medal podium with Carlos and Smith and who strongly supported them. See the documentary here.

After the Olympics, Andy stopped rowing and finished his studies at Harvard Medical School. In 1973, he applied to become a conscientious objector. His request was granted by the draft board. Andy writes in My Life in Boats: “The draft board did not request service, but I believed in service for the country. I took a job in the black ghetto in north Philadelphia. I learned about life in a third world country there. Poverty contributes to illness in many ways.”

After some years in Philadelphia, Andy received a fellowship in pulmonary diseases at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. In 1983, he moved to Northampton in Western Massachusetts. He would remain there for the rest of his life.

One day, he writes in his book, he climbed Mt. Holyoke where there was a beautiful view of the Connecticut River Valley. “I saw a college crew gliding up the river, leaving its delicate wake. Something stirred within me. There was something missing in my life as an adult. I recalled my adventures of youth rowing in a boat.”

Andy soon bought an Alden sculling boat, 18 feet long with a flat bottom, 29 inches wide, weighing 40 pounds. “It was forgiving of mistakes, and would not capsize,” he writes. In the Alden shell, Andy explored the Connecticut River on day trips, but sometimes he planed longer trips, out on the Long Island Sound, Fishers Island Sound and on to the Mystic River.

Here is a six-year-old video where Andy expresses his love for the Connecticut River:

I often met Andy Larkin at Red Top, Harvard’s rowing camp, when it was time for the annual Harvard-Yale Regatta on the Thames River. He was always talkative and often shared stories from his Harvard rowing days. Andy liked reading HTBS, he said, and sometimes he would call me at home sharing stories especially when the pandemic put a stop to meeting at the regatta on the Thames River.

Then more than a year ago, his phone calls became rambling, as were his text messages and emails. It was hard to understand what he was talking about as everything was incomprehensible. Last summer, I covered the regatta from Yale’s camp at Gales Ferry and never went to Red Top, so I do not know if Andy was there.

Andy was a free spirit and walked his own way, or maybe to be more correct, he rowed his own course.

In an obituary in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on 7 September, it reads: “He bemoaned that most obituaries omit the cause of death, a notation he felt would help in tracking diseases. His own death was from congestive heart failure. A struggle with mental illness marked his final years.”

I will miss him.

Andrew “Andy” Larkin, born 20 September 1946, died on 11 August 2023.