Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Crew

I freely admit that before starting at Kilbourne there were a lot of sports I had never seen (at least not in person) such as Water Polo, Lacrosse, and Ice Hockey. This past weekend I had the opportunity to see another new sport for the first time - Crew. Ken Greim, a former student who is now attending Dartmouth in New Hampshire, is on the Crew team. Ken's team was racing in Boston and so I had the opportunity to go out and watch him race.

I was lucky enough that my hotel room looked out onto the river which led to one of my two favorite moments... The first came in the early morning hours when the team was out on the river warming up. I had opened up the curtains and was looking out and was so excited when I realized that it was not just other Dartmouth boats, but that it was actually Ken that I could see in his boat. The picture below is taken from my hotel room with Boston University in the background with Ken's boat on the river.

It was much easier to figure out if it was the "right" boat that I was looking for when I was actually at the race. Here you can see a picture of the Harvard and Dartmouth boats during the race. (Unfortunately, Dartmouth lost to Harvard, but they did beat MIT.)

And the Dartmouth boat at the finish line. (For the record, Ken is the second one from the end on the far right side of the boat.)

One of the interesting things that I learned about Men's Crew is that they have a tradition in which the losing teams give their racing shirts to the winning team. So, the goal is to win a racing shirt from all of your competitors during your collegiate career. Since Dartmouth did not win, they had to turn their racing shirts over to Harvard and that is why as they rowed back to the boat house in these next two pictures the team is no longer wearing their Dartmouth shirts.

(Ken is now second from left.)

Earlier I mentioned that I had two favorite moments - the second was when I actually saw Ken after the race and was able to congratulate him and talk to him in person. I am so proud of him - to take on an entirely new sport in college and to commit the time and energy required to succeed is truly remarkable!

No comments:

Post a Comment