Like Rockne and Wooden, he became legendary in his sport and something of a cult figure on campus.
He coached rowing at Harvard for over half a century. He had twenty-two unbeaten seasons, as well as multiple national titles and Olympic medals. Quite reasonably, Harry Parker’s New York Times obituary uses terms like “unparalleled” and “unrivaled success.”
Highlights of reading Coach Parker’s obituary in class included seeing our vocabulary word venerable for the second week in a row, and trying to ascertain what it takes to qualify as a cult figure.