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Crew dominated by “One Man”? Think again!

2

March 26, 2014 by Edwin

Dad Vails is one of the most important races in collegiate rowing. In the 2011 mens Heavyweight 8 final we see how the Delaware fighting Blue Hens end in second place in a very close race against strong competitors like Michigan,Virginia,and Jacksonville just to name a few .Simply watching one of the events can tell you so much and yet so little. One thing you do see for sure is that there is absolutely no “I” in this sport. Watching the 2011 Mens Heavyweight 8 final shows how this sport is indeed very different from any other sport , not just the fact that the sport is in the water. As seen in the final 8 race, this is a team sport to the up most extreme, every rower must be perfectly synchronized in every stroke they take in order to move the boat as fast as possible.Compared to any other sport where you each team can have an MVP, in this sport all 8 have to be the MVP’s. Each rower has to pull their own weight and be ready to give it their all in the causer of the 2000 meters. This is one of the points mostly stressed in this video, its team work. However this is not the only thing we can see in this video, we see that women are also a  huge part of this “men” crew team. For all the boats that have a women on the but their job is to steer the boat and give commands to the boat in order to maintain a constant rate and make sure everyone is doing there job to achieve the win. we see that in this sport women are allowed to be part of this great competition and vice versa as long as they meet the weight requirements. How ever has the sport ever been segregated to gender before? How abut race and so on?

-Stay tuned for the answers


2 comments »

  1. Christina says:

    Hi Edwin,

    Interesting post. I think you’re tackling the assignment in a unique way by challenging a different medium. From what I understand, you’re arguing that crew is definitely a team sport. Unlike other sports in which one or two players can carry the team (like baseball), in crew, you can’t have a weak link – everyone must be great but more importantly, be great together. And it’s not just a men’s/women’s sport either – women participate with the men, playing an important role in their success.

    I think my main difficulty with this blog post was stumbling over the handful of errors in spelling and grammar. Normally, I don’t have a problem with these, and typically your writing is clear enough to read, but I think I got lost in the beginning of your post and had to find my way back by the end. This, however, should be an easy fix if you not only use spell-check, but look over your post with your own eyes. You’ll catch most of the mistakes that you might have made when you first wrote it.

    If you make the corrections before your classmates read your post, I’m sure they’ll have no trouble understanding what you’re saying – and then my comment will look a little silly, but I don’t mind.

    I can’t wait to find out if the sport was racially segregated! I’m staying tuned in to your blog to find out.

    ~Christina K.

  2. Robert Iandoli says:

    Dear Edwin,
    I really enjoyed reading your blog post! I had no idea that women were involved in men’s crew! I thought to be very interesting because in all other collegiate sports that I know of, there are no women allowed to be in men’s sports, only men. This leads me to a question that maybe you can answer in your next blog post. Are men steering the boats for the women in women’s crew? This could be a stupid question, but you never know. One thing that I liked about your blog post was that you incorporated the use of a link to an article. This was an interesting article about a big crew race that gave a lot of information about it and really let the reader have a lot of background knowledge so we really know what you are talking about. I liked how you ended your blog post on a series of questions that really got me interested in reading your next post. I would like to know if the race has ever been segregated to gender! Can’t wait to read your next post!

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