When the 1980 U.S. Olympic rowing team reunites after 30 years at this weekend’s Head of the Charles Regatta, there won’t be any glorious victories to recount.
President Jimmy Carter, after all, boycotted that year’s Moscow Summer Games.
Despite that news, many members of the team continued to train in hopes of being able to compete in the U.S.S.R.
They never did.
“The reason we get together every 10 years or so is not because we had a miserable experience,” said Carie Graves, a team member who became the first female coach at Radcliffe (aka Harvard’s women’s crew) in 1978.
“It’s because we believe in what we did and never stopped believing. We didn’t just roll over.”
