For some odd reason I found myself thinking of Philadelphia a lot the other day. Not just "Philadelphia" itself.... but Philadelphia, in the spring time with cherry blossom trees, art museum steps and warm afternoons spent by the Schuylkill river. I realized it was because my body and my mind were taking me back to my college days rowing for SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). Every year come early May, we would make the pilgrimage from Savannah Georgia all the way up to Philadelphia to compete in the Dad Vail Regatta, the largest collegiate regatta in the US (with over 100 schools competing). This was always the highlight of every spring racing season. Not only did we get a chance to compete against big Division I colleges from all across the nation, but it was a big four day trip from school, PAID for by the school actually. You got a flight, a nice hotel room downtown, food money, etc... all covered. You also had plenty of downtime and not only did you get to go to the big art museum there and run up and down the rocky steps... you got chances to explore a city all on your own.
During my four years at SCAD, I went to Philly four times. Each time I went I explored a new part of the city on my time off. After awhile I got a pretty good baring for being a once a year visitor. In fact, from working at Camp Tapawingo during my collegiate summers, I knew a fair amount of people in Philly. As a result, it wasn't too unlikely to be walking around Rittenhouse Square or somewhere else and run into one of my campers (it was probably weirder for them than it was for me).
Every trip had monumental stories attached to it. Like, my freshman year I got food poisoning at the airport (the night before was Cinco De Mayo = bad Mexican food at Juarez) and I threw up the whole way to Philly. By the time I had to race the following morning, I hadn't been able to keep any food down for 24 hours and a host of team moms force fed me pedialyte to hydrate me. That year we also Ghost Ran the Philly "Race for the Cure" which was a lot of fun and completely random. Another year, I ran into an acquaintance from high school in the elevator of our hotel. We had been in HI-Y club at different schools and knew each other from conferences and committee's we were both on. Turns out that now she lived in St. Louis and was a coxswain for her college. Over the years, I had a lot of good races, ate at a lot of cool places and had a lot of good times with my friends; however, my favorite year was probably my senior year 2002, when my parents finally made it out from Ohio to see my last college row. Not only was I excited to have my parents there... but I was excited that they got to see one of the best races of my career.
Basically, all year we had been winning and then losing to Georgia Tech's women's lightweight four. And this... would be the last time we'd face them for the year... we wanted to win. Maybe Georgia Tech never knew they were our big rivals, but we hated them (hate in a competitive way, that is). We hated them in the same way that when you're a small little NCAA Div III athletics program (at an art school) that never gets any press... any recognition... you hate the bigger state schools. You hate the Georgia Techs, you hate University of Georgia, you hate Emory, you hate Georgia Southern, as a matter of fact... you hate University of Tennessee, Alabama, pretty much any school from Florida, and defiantly any school from South Carolina. That's just the way it is. Maybe for those schools, we were just a little fly on the wall, a bleep on the radar... but when you'd race them, and you won... you did something that no other team at your school could really say they had done, beat a big DI school. Sure, the baseball or volleyball team could say they beat Eastern North Carolina Baptist College, but who in the hell is Eastern North Carolina Baptist College? exactly! Who in the hell is the University of Georgia though, well... they're the fucking Bulldogs, that's who they are. And when they and Georgia Tech lose to wee little SCAD, you feel a little like David clocking Goliath in the noggin. People know those names, people take notice.
By this point, roughly ten years since that race... I can't tell you all the small details. I can't tell you how the water sounded against the boat, what lane we were in or what our stroke rate was off the start. However, I can tell you that we didn't win that race. I can tell you that we didn't even advance to the next round. In fact... we got third place in that heat. But you know what? Georgia Tech got fourth place. We beat them out in the last 500 meter finish sprint and it was great. Us and them... mano y mano... for all the marbles. We lost the race, but we won our little small school war. And that, was the only thing that mattered.
Looking back on the Dad Vails, I found out that it happened just this past weekend. And well, while thousands of college students were lining the banks of Schuylkill river in the sun, clothed in spandex, waiting for their turn to race... I sat by the banked slopes of a velodrome, in the sun, clothed in spandex, and waiting for my turn to race. Its funny how the more things change, the more some things stay the same.
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