
Miami Regattas
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Mar 2, 2007, 10:14 PM
Post #45 of 48
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Re: [The Publisher] Best College Sailing Team
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What would Joe say? By Lynn Fitzpatrick I have vivid memories of my first days at the Mystic Lake over a quarter of a century ago. Tufts had a new coach and not nearly enough Larks for everybody who wanted tryout for the team. If you weren’t first or second in a race, you had to give up your boat to one of the crews who was standing on the floating docks. There were so many eager skippers and crews waiting to tryout that the floating docks were submerged. Competing for a school with a legendary sailing team, one meets and becomes part of the string of legends. I knew that we had a great team during my freshman year, but every upperclassman and alum whom I met would tell story after story of Joe Duplin and his Jumbo sailing teams. When Scuttlebutt started the tread about best college sailing teams, my sense was that one of Joe’s late 1970’s teams was truly the best college team ever. The question remained, what year? Among other things, the Etchells Midwinters has been a bit of a Jumbo reunion. With Dave Curtis, Michael Loeb, Neal Fowler, Bill Lynn, me and P.J. Keenan aboard various boats, our Tufts sailing team history spans from the mid-1960’s through the early-1990’s. Joe Duplin’s 1977 Tufts Sailing Team gets our endorsement as the best college sailing team ever. Forgive us if we’ve left anybody off this powerhouse of a list: Sam Altreuder, Betsy Gelenitis Alison, Diana Baxter, Ethan Bixby, Henry Brauer, Bruce Burton, Fran Charles, Peter Commette, Kevin Coneys, Arthur Cunningham, Susan Dierdorf Taylor, Bill Drewes, Paul Duane, Chris Fowler, Neal Fowler, Laurie Gabriel, Bob Gleason, Stu Johnstone, Dave Kellogg, Maurice Kurg, Michael Leob, Mark Leopold, Jamie McCreary, Douglas McKeige, Fritz Meuller, Mark Meuller, Jim Miller, Stu Neff, Dave Nickerson, Jean Noyes, Cindy Paladina, Joe Petrucci, Robert Van Melel, Hale Walcoff and Martha Winche. With a team like that, one would have been in good company standing on a dock waiting for a chance to sail. With so many sailors on his roster, it is no wonder why Joe kept it simple and called everyone “Babe”.
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