Project Editor: Joshua Vapenik, History 470: Digital History, Spring 2008

Obstacles

Many difficulties were overcome in order to even get the team off the ground. First and foremost, they needed a large body of water nearby on which they could practice. Next, they needed equipment in which to compete. Of course, such equipment cost not just money but a lot of money, leading to a third need, a source of funding with which to purchase equipment and pay for events and operating expenses. Additionally, once equipment was obtained, a safe and secure place in which to store it when not in use was needed. Last but certainly not least, people to make up the team had to be recruited.

Today, the University has the Sport Clubs program and Office of Student Involvement to provide students with the opportunity to not only participate in various activities, but also to start their own organization if one meeting their interests does not exist. The Sport Club program has its own budget that is dispersed annually to those club sport organizations that participate in it. Currently, twenty-six different activities are a part of the Club Sports program, from baseball to rugby, tennis to Tae Kwon Do. The Crew team is currently a part of this organizational structure and receives an annual budget from it, but in the 1970s no such Club Sport program existed, and when the Athletic Department refused to officially recognize the sport as a varsity event, the team was forced to find their own way to go on. The solutions they found for the problems they faced took several forms, some of them requiring personal sacrifice and hard work, others petty larceny and low-level rebellion. Throughout it all however, the same can-do attitude persisted and helped the team meet with success no matter what they faced.