Our school year may be coming to a close, but that doesn’t mean our sports teams are slacking off by any means. Over the weekend, after beating No. 14 Dartmouth College a week ago and winning the Dartmouth Bill Cup, our men’s crew team, ranked No. 6 in the nation, swept No. 8 Syracuse University and No. 12 Columbia University to claim the Conlan Cup. It marks an impressive total of five cup wins this season, a BU crew record.
I had a few thoughts once I saw that headline on the Boston University Athletics homepage:
First of all, our crew team is ranked sixth in the country? Second of all, we have a crew team? (Just kidding! After all, I knew that we didn’t have the Winklevoss twins on our team. So there.)
And then I had a third thought: crew isn’t nearly as popular as it should be among college students.
Yeah, yeah, I know: I say that about every sport here at BU. I just love the diversity of our little sports world and I want everyone to be exposed to it, so sue me.
I could imagine why crew would be a hard sport to become fully enthusiastic about, mostly because the lingo is so hard to decipher. Coxed? Stroked? Eight boat versus four boat? Winning the Conlan Cup? (Crew sounds a lot like Quidditch! Except on water. And it’s played by all of us inferior Muggles.) But all of those complicated terms are just part of the fun, like being part of an exclusive club whose members all speak a language unknown to outsiders.
Baseball is an obvious example of needing to speak an entirely different language in order to just know what’s going on, let alone actually enjoy what you’re watching. As a baseball fanatic, I’ve read plenty of articles wondering how to “fix” the sport, how to make it more appealing to the general public.
But those articles ignore an essential fact: loving a sport like baseball or crew or lacrosse means that you love all of that confusing mumbo jumbo that makes the sport unique. Would baseball be baseball without RBIs and ERAs and OBPs? Would crew be crew without race times and stories that include terms like “coxed” and “stroked”? Of course not.
So yes, the lingo is an essential part of the sport. But that’s also part of the problem, particularly with college students who know nothing about said sport. What’s the point of taking time out of your schedule that could be devoted to studying or hanging out with friends to instead watch a sport that is completely foreign to you, especially if you’re only a casual fan anyway?
A lot of the reason why your average college student wouldn’t take time out of their busy schedules to watch sports is because he or she can’t grasp every random statistic or nonsensical term being thrown around without any explanation. I’m convinced that someone’s only reason for “hating” sports or not being totally and completely obsessed with them like I am is simply because they don’t understand the rules.
This isn’t to say that people who don’t understand the rules of a sport are somehow inferior in intelligence to those who do, because that’s not my point at all. I’ve just never in my life met someone who has said, “I know everything there is to know about everything sports-related, and I just choose to hate them.” Not possible. Want to know why?
Sports combine two things that humans (and college students especially) inherently love: competition and knowledge. The competition aspect is obvious, but knowledge of a sport brings me back to my original point: every sport has its own language, and if you fully understand it and know all the miniscule details about it, you’re hooked for life.
While crew may be a bit harder to become completely obsessed with (no professional league, only popular where a large body of water is accessible, etc.), I still think that it’s worth giving a shot. I haven’t watched any crew races during my time at BU (yet!) but I’ve definitely watched the Olympic crew teams compete, and it was probably some of the most compelling television of the Olympics.
I don’t care who you are, if you don’t get caught up in racing, the most fundamentally basic aspect of crew and sports in general, you need to have your life reevaluated. (Consider crew a mix between swimming, sailing, and NASCAR. It makes sense in my head, okay?)
Plus, there was that 30-second scene in “The Social Network” where the Harvard team was rowing while frantic music played in the background. See, wasn’t that the most entertaining part of that movie? I told you crew was exciting!
So, you ask, what exactly does it mean when a boat is “coxed” by one player and “stroked” by another? Well, I guess you’ll just have to watch and find out.
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Great article! I like how it was related as fun, and intriguing and potentially a sport deserving of more attention! that is never bad! One bit of feedback for future articles by this writer who is a recent convert to love the sport of rowing. It is either a rowing team or a crew, but not actually or technically a crew team. And the sport is technically called rowing, not crew. To be a crew team, would be rather reduntant. So as you work on the lingo, and I know you are, this would be part of it. Awesome article however, and much appreciated!!!! Go BU Rowing!!!!!!!!!
Conlan Cup is for beating Syracuse. By beating Columbia, BU won the Lusins Cup as well. I’m sure the team would enjoy a cheering section as they take on Wisconsin this Sunday for the Jablonic Cup.
Is Alanna Cummings on the team or is she just the writer? It would be nice to see a picture of either the team or someone on the team.
Muggles, muggles?!? Those that row are not muggles. That term is reserved for those that do not, or cannot row. BAM!
You say that mens rowing is a combination of swimming, sailing and swimming. In reality, it is more like boxing.