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    She really captures it very well.

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      WTAF

      https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1114605447909011456

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        At first glance I thought that was Trump in a yarmulke.

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          Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
          She really captures it very well.
          I normally don’t like Caitlin Flannagan’s stuff, but this one rings true. Though I question her inclusion of volleyball as a “rich white” sport. Maybe compared to boxing, but not everywhere. Not compared to lacrosse or fencing.

          But then, increasingly, all sports and extracurricular activities - even basketball -advantage rich-kids because those kids’ parents have the wherewithal to pay for all the private lessons, coaches, and camps needed to hone those talents into something that would impress a university. There will always be prodigies that are so talented that they can get scholarships and help from various benefactors and there are some great public schools for the arts and what not, but rich people will always find a way to buy an edge.

          It’s so hard to get into one of the elite schools now that the quality of students going to the not-so-elite places and big state schools should be better than ever. With the glut of PhDs, those places can, at least in theory, get better faculty than they once could. This should be making education more democratic and closing the gap between the elite and not-so-elite.

          But I fear that so many of the students who didn’t get into the “reach” school they wanted to just say “fuck it, I guess it turns out that I’m dumb, so I’ll just major in something easy and drink for four years.” I saw a little bit of this attitude at W&M and a lot of it at BU. I think there’s also a lot of it at Penn State, though maybe not as much as there used to be. It’s creeped into my own brain too. Not so much the drinking part but the hopelessness and giving-up part.

          I’m tired of trying to be “special.” I think a lot of people are.

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            The volleyball thing is due to her being in California. When my nieces started to play, I was really surprised at how different the demographics were to those out east. The core participants were at least as privileged as those at the Bay Area rowing clubs.

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              What is it about Rowing and posh people? Is it just the cost of the boats or something? The 2012 olympic rowing took place at Eton, which was nice. There's a rowing club down in skibbereen where the locals have taken to rowing as though it was the GAA. And currently they have four rowers with two olympic silvers, six world championship golds four european championship gold medals and four silvers between them. It seems like a sport that could do with expanding its participation pool a bit.

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                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                The volleyball thing is due to her being in California. When my nieces started to play, I was really surprised at how different the demographics were to those out east. The core participants were at least as privileged as those at the Bay Area rowing clubs.
                Yeah, here girls volleyball is just a sport every school, rich or poor, has. Some schools don’t have boys volleyball but it’s about exposure, title IX and numbers of interested players not about money.

                But like every sport, there are camps and clubs, and private coaches and the players who do all those things have a much better chance of making their high school team than the players who don’t.


                Rowing is closer to being “inherently posh” because the boats and the boathouse cost so much. Not many public high schools having rowing teams but some do and some of the top teams are big state schools that happen to be next to suitable bodies of water like Washington and Wisconsin.


                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 07-04-2019, 23:43.

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                  *only frequent poster to have rowed for an Ivy League school looks at (non-boat) shoes*

                  Reed is right. Back in the day, even the Ivy squads would feature a majority of people who had never been in a racing shell before they showed up on campus. Those days are gone. There are elite club programmes in places like Philadelphia, Washington and the Bay Area that effectively costs thousands of USD a year to join (and one needs to do well in such a programme for at least three years to have a hope of rowing at an Ivy).

                  The weird thing to easterners is that volleyball in the Bay Area isn't that different. Some schools have teams, but all of the action (and college opportunities) are at club teams that play year round and travel a good deal (including out of state).

                  What any of this has to do with higher education remains to be seen.

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                    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post

                    Reed is right. Back in the day, even the Ivy squads would feature a majority of people who had never been in a racing shell before they showed up on campus. Those days are gone. There are elite club programmes in places like Philadelphia, Washington and the Bay Area that effectively costs thousands of USD a year to join (and one needs to do well in such a programme for at least three years to have a hope of rowing at an Ivy).
                    This rings true - at least the first part of it. One of the missus's best friends rowed for MIT (admittedly not an Ivy) despite never having been in a boat before, growing up in farmland southern Illinois and playing basketball (and, ironically, volleyball). During her first week, the rowing club spotted a muscular 6 foot tall woman and recruited her on the spot.

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                      Yeah, there have been Olympic rowers who has never done it until college, IIRC.

                      Rugby was like that in the US 25 years ago and lacrosse and even soccer was like that at one time.

                      The coach would just find some good athletes, perhaps also playing other sports in different seasons, and ask if they wanted to give it a try. Often the coach was also the coach of another sport too. Bruce Arena and Bill Belichek also coached lacrosse, for example.

                      Now everything is highly specialized and kids are expected to pick one sport and take it very seriously from an early age. Insofar as sports are supposed to complement the overall academic and “character-building” mission, this isn’t really helpful, is it?

                      It’s not necessarily a knock against the kids who do make it and can succeed in such a system, but it’s just one more thing that teaches kids that the only things worth doing are the ones you’re really good at. That seems like a recipe for unhappiness and loneliness.

                      I don’t see a systematic solution. Rich people will always try to buy an advantage. Getting rid of sports scholarships might help but I suspect schools would just offer them under the table anyway. Getting rid of college sports completely would mean the kids hell bent on sports glory would just drop out of school, and that wouldn’t help.

                      Perhaps, especially if the athletes win more rights, we might see universities that are currently losing money on sports drop out of the race or maybe more fairly large schools will somehow drop to D3. I wish William & Mary could do that.*

                      Even the schools that clearly don’t need sports to increase their name recognition or reputation have them and, in some cases, win national championships. It’s an insatiable beast.

                      * I don’t know if W&M could find a D3 conference that would take them since it’s a public university with over 5,000 students. Wouldn’t really fit with 1,500 student private colleges. Besides, there are enough monied alums who want to make a go of it in D1 and they will keep shoveling in just enough money to keep the effort going, just not not enough to be nationally successful.

                      Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 08-04-2019, 01:01.

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                        Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post

                        This rings true - at least the first part of it. One of the missus's best friends rowed for MIT (admittedly not an Ivy) despite never having been in a boat before, growing up in farmland southern Illinois and playing basketball (and, ironically, volleyball). During her first week, the rowing club spotted a muscular 6 foot tall woman and recruited her on the spot.
                        Two guys from my high school rowed for MIT about 20 years ago. Neither did it in high school. In fact, I’m not sure either did any sports in high school (maybe unremarkable make-up-the-numbers members of track and field.) One was a cox and the other was just a big guy. He made it to their varsity 8 and I watched him at the Head of the Charles. Pretty cool, I guess.

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                          Meanwhile we have a silver spoon up his ass president who cheats at golf. Sums it up.

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                            What proportion of high schools even offer rowing?

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                              My daughter does Dragon Boat at her school, but then the school is about 3/4 of a mile from a very large body of water.

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                                The number of public high schools that offer crew is likely less than 25, and could be less than 20. That is still more than twice as many as did when I was rowing in the late 70s.

                                Universities now draw their rowers from private prep schools (as they have for over a century), "club" programmes like the Bay Area ones I mentioned, and (increasingly) international students who have rowed in international competition as juniors. My nephew's cohort at Columbia had five guys from Australia, Canada and Europe who had rowed for their countries before they came to New York.

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                                  It's silly, you go backwards.

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                                    Except the cox.

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                                      Don't try to impress me with your posh vocab.

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                                        Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                        It's silly, you go backwards.
                                        Rowing forwards isn't terribly efficient.

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                                          Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post

                                          Rowing forwards isn't terribly efficient.
                                          Well, you say that, but if I was given the chance I make take a punt at it.

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                                            So name me a sport where if you go forward you lose?

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                                              Tug of war.

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                                                Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post

                                                Rowing forwards isn't terribly efficient.
                                                Neither are the countless hours wasted looking backwards so that you can be on an Ivy "crew." Just go for a nice walk.

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                                                  Yep. That was a short-lived quiz.

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                                                    Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                                    Just go for a nice walk.
                                                    Even a strong forward walker is going to get turned away at Yale.

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