Crew

PurpleGeezer wrote:Really? if i want to go see the team in action I have to get up before a retired guy's Dawn?

up7587 wrote:Should be interesting to see them slalom around all the salmon fishermen.

PurpleGeezer wrote:I vote the article and three others I linked to him the stupidest article on the NCAA. Nowhere does it tell you what rule it is so you can look it up yourself. And Nogera seems very confused between betting shirts and exchanging shirts. Two very different concepts.

10.02.1 sports wagering. [#] Sports wagering includes placing, accepting or soliciting a wager (on a staff member’s or student-athlete’s own behalf or on the behalf of others) of any type with any individual or organiza- tion on any intercollegiate, amateur or professional team or contest. Examples of sports wagering include, but are not limited to, the use of a bookmaker or parlay card; Internet sports wagering; auctions in which bids are placed on teams, individuals or contests; and pools or fantasy leagues in which an entry fee is required and there is an opportunity to win a prize. (Adopted: 4/26/07 effective 8/1/07)
10.02.2 wager. [#] A wager is any agreement in which an individual or entity agrees to give up an item of value (e.g., cash, shirt, dinner) in exchange for the possibility of gaining another item of value. (Adopted: 4/26/07 effective 8/1/07)

10.3.1 scope of Application. [#] The prohibition against sports wagering applies to any institutional prac- tice or any competition (intercollegiate, amateur or professional) in a sport in which the Association conducts championship competition, in bowl subdivision football and in emerging sports for women. (Adopted: 4/26/07 effective 8/1/07)
10.3.1.1 Exception. [#] The provisions of Bylaw 10.3 are not applicable to traditional wagers between in- stitutions (e.g., traditional rivalry) or in conjunction with particular contests (e.g., bowl games). Items wagered must be representative of the involved institutions or the states in which they are located. (Adopted: 4/26/07 effective 8/1/07)

Oarsmen must win to keep shirts on their backs

By Tyler Borek
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Since the fall of the professional oarsman in the late 19th century, American rowing has survived only as an unpopular amateur sport, carried on by a small groups of fervent, oft-ignored devotees.

In “The Amateurs,” perhaps the most professionally rendered recent account of competitive rowing, David Halberstam emphasizes the amateur nature of competitive rowing. Back in the day, he says, oarsman rowed “because they wanted to, for no reward other than the feeling itself.” And now, for true rowing enthusiasts and modern dissidents like Halberstam, the sport has come to embody a conservative aesthetic, he says — a charming, anachronistic curiosity.

‘Lost in the mists of time’

Shirt-racing, or shirt-betting, embodies this traditional aesthetic. Pre-eminent rowing collector-historian Tom Weil ’71 says losers were traditionally obliged to strip the racing shirts off their backs and hand them to their opponents on the water. The boats would pull together, shake hands, pass the shirts and push apart, with the losing crew rowing back to the dock shirtless.

Today, generally speaking, crews pass shirts on the dock or on shore, tempering, at least somewhat, the humiliation of the defeat.

The delay of the exchange has emerged in tandem with another variation on traditional shirt-racing, in which teams purchase cheaper shirts for trading purposes. This practice, according to Weil, was implemented by a savvy Athletics Department to deal with crews who were losing shirts every race, incurring a substantial cost to the University.

Despite shirt-racing’s status as an established tradition in the rowing community, its origins are strangely unclear. Weil describes the practice as one “particularly lost in the mists of time.”

Yale lightweight coach Andy Card, who rowed at Princeton in the late ’80s, recalls taking part in the tradition.

“It was certainly established when I was around,” Card said.

Presumably, shirt-racing is so old that no one remembers how it began, only romanticizing further the practice. But Weil suggests that the betting of shirts may have been introduced by a Syracuse crew in 1920, or even more recently than that. While Weil’s collection includes stories of shirt-racing dating back to the ’20s and ’30s, the collector has never seen an image of the practice before the ’60s. Weil further emphasized that one can be sure of shirt-racing’s 20th-century origins since, pre-1900, racing was done primarily without shirts.

Today, shirt-racing remains largely confined to men’s collegiate rowing in the United States. Most current rowers, including Yale oarswoman Tess Gerrand ’10, attribute the gender discrepancy to the anti-gambling regulations of the NCAA. Women’s rowing is an NCAA sport, while men’s is not. But shirt-racing was never a part of women’s rowing, even before it became an NCAA sport in 1997.

In a letter to the editor of The New York Times on June 10, 1997, Mary Gallagher, a female Princeton rower in the mid-1970s, claimed a lack of women’s shirt-racing resulted from economic constraints due to unequal funding for women’s athletics prior to Title IX.

‘An unwritten code’

As for the exportation of shirt-racing, it seems the practice remains an exclusively American tradition. At international competitions, oarsmen often exchange uniforms and team gear regardless of the result, but actual shirt-betting does not occur.

In American men’s collegiate rowing, shirt-racing happens primarily in the spring. Competitive rowers train all year, competing in the fall and spring. While in the fall rowers race 5K head races against the clock, the spring consists of side-by-side 2K races. A team’s typical spring rowing program includes a number of dual races, featuring one or two other crews in preparation for the championship regatta-style races in May and June. For Division I men’s rowing, these championship races are the Eastern Sprints and the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships (IRAs). The IRA is considered the national championship.

Division I rowing schools compete in annual dual races in which shirt-racing is established tradition. Similarly, the championship regattas operate according to an unspoken winner-take-all arrangement. In these races, because of large number of competitors, competition is divided into heats, semifinals and finals. The winner of the “grand final” takes home all of the jerseys, including those of teams eliminated in earlier rounds. Thus, championship crews return to campus with piles of racing jerseys, sometimes as many as 25, which they are free to wear as emblems of conquest.

While oarsmen don the gear of vanquished competitors with pride, the exchange itself is generally characterized by respect and humility.

Yale lightweight freshman coach Joe Fallon ’06 describes shirt-racing as a time-honored practice.

“[It] adds to the camaraderie of the sport,” Fallon said, “since the shirt exchange after the race typically involves a collegial dialogue in which men, who were bitter foes only minutes before, express mutual respect for one another.”

Lightweight rower Spencer Salovaara ’10 characterizes the shirt exchange as a civil completion to the race.

“[It] operates according to an unwritten code of humility,” he said.

Halberstam traces the respectful tone of the exchange to the sense of community that has developed in the insular world of rowing, in part due to the intense physical demands of the sport.

“Humility became part of the code,” Halberstam wrote in his book, “Because your adversaries had subjected themselves to virtually the same regimen that you did, you respected them as much as you respected yourself.”

To an outsider, the civility of the exchange might disguise the intensity of the competition, but many of the rowers interviewed said it merely reinforces it.

The humiliation of losing one’s shirt is palpable and personal, described by Weil as both “symbolic” and “very real.”

“In a normal sport, if you lose, you can go hide yourself in the locker room. In this sport, you offer yourself up to the victors,” Salovarra notes.

DoubleDipper wrote:

The Portland Pilots women's rowing team will begin the 2012 spring season with a series of races against Lewis & Clark and a boat christening on Saturday morning near the Portland Boathouse on the east bank of the Willamette River. The race is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., while the boat christening will take place at 10:30 a.m.

“The team is excited to get the racing season started,” said UP head coach Bill Zack. “This is the end of our spring break, and the team has accomplished a lot and has really come together. This will be a great way to end the week.”

Saturday’s event against the Lewis & Clark Pioneers will feature four 1,000 meter “mini” races on the Willamette River. The starting line will be just south of the Ross Island Bridge, and the 1,000 meter course will run south down the Holgate Channel, finishing near the Ross Island Lagoon.

The Pilots first eight will race against both the Lewis & Clark first eight and the Pioneers top men’s four. UP’s second and third eight’s will race Lewis & Clark’s second eight and a second men’s four.

The meet will be followed by a boat christening and the naming of the two newest Pilot boats at the Portland Boathouse. UP’s eight-person shell will be named ‘Fr. Bill’ in honor of University President, Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., while the four-person shell will be named ‘Al and Sue Corrado’ in honor of the Life Regents and longtime supporters of UP athletics. Al Corrado is a class of ’55 alumnus.

“The new equipment demonstrates the University’s support of the rowing team,” said Zack, “and we’re thrilled to honor Father Beauchamp and the Corrados, all of whom do so much for the entire University and the Athletic Department as well.”

Zack noted that UP’s co-captains will express the team’s appreciation during the christening ceremony.

The Portland Boathouse is located on the east bank of the Willamette River at the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge, just north of OMSI.

PurpleGeezer wrote:... So, is it traditional? Is it done? Is it secret? Has anybody ever been busted for it? ....

DoubleDipper wrote:.

Now that folks, is a short season.

After having their best season ever last spring the Bainbridge Island high school crew team, which boasts a total of 106 athletes combined in the boys and girls team, looks to even out-do last season.

Head coach Tom Goss said this is the first crop of seniors he has had.
“We are very excited,” Goss said. “This promises to be our best year ever.”
The team’s first regatta is Saturday, but only the novice riders will travel.
The varsity team’s first of three big regattas is on April 14-16 in Eugene, Ore., where both high school and college level teams will compete.

The meets for the crew team all lead up to the Regional Championship Regatta at Vancouver Lake in mid-May, where Goss said he hopes to have a boat or two qualify for nationals, which takes place in Tennessee.
It will take all eight riders to reach the goal of qualifying for nationals, but both the girls and boys have some exciting athletes to keep an eye on.

For the girls, Bridget Sloat and Hannah Marsing are two of the team’s strongest riders. Both have said they are going to row at universities next year.

Sloat plans to row for the University of Portland and Marsing plans to row for Bucknell.

DoubleDipper wrote: Who knew they were called "riders?" It seems to me they work awfully hard to be simply "riders."