Harry Parker (rower)
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men's rowing | ||
Representing the  United States
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| Pan American Games | ||
 |
1959 Chicago | Single sculls |
Harry Parker (October 28, 1935 – June 25, 2013) was the head coach of the Harvard varsity rowing program (1963–2013). He also represented the United States in the single scull at the 1960 Summer Olympics.
Parker attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate, where he majored in Philosophy and learned rowing. Mentored by Pennsylvania's coach Joe Burk, Parker rowed on the 1955 Penn Varsity crew that won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta.
After college, Parker began to scull competitively. He won the single scull (one man boat) at the 1959 Pan American Games. In 1959, Parker also competed in the Diamond Scull event at the Henley Royal Regatta finishing second to six-time champion Stuart MacKenzie.
In 1960, he won the U.S. Olympic trials in the single scull. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Parker made the finals and finished fifth.
During his training for the national team, Parker's name was forwarded to the athletic director at Harvard, Tom Bolles, who appointed the 27-year-old oarsman as the freshman coach in 1961. When Harvard's varsity coach, Harvey Love, died suddenly of a heart attack in the spring of 1963, Parker was promoted to the varsity level, purely on an interim basis. The crew had an uneven spring, and performed poorly at the Eastern Sprints (the league championship for the EARC). The annual highpoint of the Harvard rowing season is the Harvard-Yale race (the oldest and longest-running intercollegiate sporting event in the United States) held in June. Parker meticulously prepared his crew for their biggest race of the year. Heavy underdogs against the favored Yale crew, the Harvard varsity pulled off an upset. Parker was appointed permanent coach of the varsity crew. Harvard would not lose to Yale until 1981.
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