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Harry Parker was probably the most important figure in American rowing of the past century. His heavyweight crews at Harvard topped the leagues more consistently than any other team. From the time they miraculously won the 1963 Harvard-Yale Race at the end of his first year at the helm, Parker's varsity didn't lose a race for six years, and they didn't lose to Yale until the Reagan administration. He was respected by all, revered and adored by his rowers, and yet no one seemed to know him. The persistent myth was that he hardly said a word, and that his powerful mystique alone made his oarsmen great and their boats go fast. Since he made no attempt to explain himself, legends abound: he never got older; he could control the weather; he could walk on water.
Ayer gets inside the rowing world in a way that hasn't been done before, putting the reader in the passenger seat next to one of the most successful coaches of all time. Parker was the first US National Team coach, and oversaw five Olympic teams. He coached the sons of great oarsmen, and at age 70 was still putting the sons to shame on a bicycle, or running the steps of the Harvard Stadium. Intertwined with the narrative's historical perspective are profiles of other coaches at Harvard, and impressions from rowers and coaches who worked with Parker over the previous forty-five years.
The Sphinx of the Charles is a chronicle of a year with the Harvard team and a profile of Harry Parker as he was, five years before his death: comfortable in his position as elder and master of the sport, reflective but not nostalgic, aged but nearly impervious to aging.