With the start of the racing season, comes the onslaught of "feel good" articles from a variety of sub-par rowing programs. I don't share to poke fun of the teams. Rather, I wonder, from a literary or journalistic perspective can't we do any better, even on the University level? Please note: When your team loses, just say so. Below are short excerpts from the teams we've beaten the last couple of weeks that I've found highly amusing. [Blue notes are my comments.]
4/3/2009
"The Syracuse Orange women's rowing team placed second in three races and improved on all of its times from a week ago on Friday evening. The top-ranked Yale Bulldogs retained the Cayuga Cup for the sixth consecutive year by winning all five of the races in which it competed, including the varsity eight."
"Even though we did not beat Yale, today was a good day for Syracuse rowing," said senior coxswain of the varsity eight Katie Todd. "We rowed a hard, fast gutsy race and accomplished our goal. We will take the momentum from this weekend into our race with Penn and Northeastern next Saturday."
"The Orange finished third in the second varsity four heat with a time of 7:56.7. The Yale B shell was first at 7:29.1 with the Yale C boat finishing second at 7:36.0. Syracuse's time was 29 seconds faster than its time at Boston a week ago."
Comparing results from one week to the next, much less one day, or even hour to the next is not something that is done. Conditions are too variable on the same river from one day to the next, much less on different rivers. Thus, saying that a boat "got faster" based on a comparison of the two times is completely arbitrary!
"Syracuse finished third in the novice eight race with a time of 7:04.37. Yale was first at 6:49.72 and Cornell placed second at 6:52.91. SU was 10 seconds quicker than it was last week at Boston."
"Women's Rowing Headed in Right Direction Despite Struggles vs. Yale and Penn"
Pelham, NY, March 28, 2009
"It's enough opening your spring season against Yale's defending national champions. Throw in difficult weather conditions including a thick fog, and Columbia women's rowers could be excused if they were unhappy with their northern spring opener in the Connell Cup on Saturday, March 28th."
So, was Yale exempt from the bad conditions? To the best of my knowledge, we weren't rowing in a bubble.
"The head coach said, 'I'm happy with the direction we're going in. We're doing really good things."
"The Lion novices rowing in the Varsity "A" Fours race, were impressive in beating Penn by 6.9 seconds."
"Columbia won one race, the Novice Fours against Penn, and fell to powerful Yale in five others."
Just to clarify, Yale wasn't in this race - we couldn't have won.
No comments:
Post a Comment