Oarsmen must win to keep shirts on their backs
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.
#2
By Robert (Unregistered User)
10:25pm on April 10, 2008
As a member of the freshman crew in '65/'66, I don't recall any such "shirt racing."
And not because we were undefeated, either...
#3
By Miles Roby (Unregistered User)
1:15am on May 30, 2008
I think the point is that shirt racing makes rowing unique, and that rowing races have a sense of the "aesthetic" and some antiquated allure, acknowledged by the exchange of the very symbol of pride for a team: their shirts. Rowing, appearing like poetry in motion to the insouciant observer, actually takes mind numbing effort to appear "smooth," so after the races it's as if the rowers show their deep respect and understanding to the winners through a rather intimate gesture.
Quibbling about the exact day it started is beside the point of the (very well written) article.
Men’s heavyweights’ struggles continue
The tradition of shirt racing in rowing probably has a connection to the old English custom of dressing river ferrymen in loud colors, the better to attract business on the busy fords of the Thames. One of the earliest references to this is the famous race among boatmen which resulted in an award to a Mr. Doggett, the prize ever after being known as "Doggett's Coat". But the tradition may go even farther back than that. During Napoleonic times a regiment of soldiers would go to great lengths to capture the colors of an opposing unit, to their credit, and the disgrace of their foe. Knights of old, obscured in their armor, were identifiable by the colored shields they bore. Augustus was apoplectic upon the loss of imperial eagles to Germanic hordes on the Rhine. As far back as Homer reference can be found of the vanquished yielding their identity to their conquerers, as when the brave Achilles stripped the glowing armor from the body of noble Hector. One can only imagine cavemen clobbering each other in an attempt to purloin a particularly fetching mammoth skin. Shirt collecting has a long and noble past, and that women's rowing doesn't allow it speaks more to the neuroses of the NCAA and their concern for "betting" than anything else. Pity those deprived of this gracious opportunity to show sportsmanship in its ancient and noble form.