"Crew" is NOT a Verb!

Emily and I went on a DC monument boat cruise on Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day to be out on the Potomac and it was kind of interesting to hear the narration about the various sites as we motored between Alexandria and Georgetown. I thought it was nice that they mentioned Thompson Boat Center (a favorite club of scullers in the DC area) and I wondered if they would mention the Alexandria Community Boathouse on the way back. They did: "... a gift from the city of Alexandria to the T.C. Williams crew team. T.C. Williams has one of the finest high school crewing programs in the country..."

CREWING PROGRAMS!? This has got to stop. I appreciate that rowing is not a "major" sport with a significant fan following. I admit that the terminology is esoteric and mastering it takes significant exposure to the sport. But this is fundamental: Rowers ROW. They don't CREW. They are not CREWERS and they do not spend their mornings CREWING. The only thing more obnoxious than having a non-rower use "crew" as a verb, is when they do it in conjunction with that weird arm flailing that is supposed to signify rowing.

Now, I understand the confusion. Ask most high school or college rowers what they do with their time and they'll respond, "I'm on the crew team." Even the term "crew team" is an affront to the purist, who demands these organizations be called "rowing teams." But "crew team," or referring to the sport of rowing as "crew" has won a battle of attrition and worked its way into acceptable rowing vernacular. In addition, the use of the word "crew" as a verb is technically correct when it's definition is limited to "participating as a member of a crew or team in the activities related to the operation of a boat, yacht or ship." So if I were to say that I crewed an eight in college, that's a legitimate use of the word. As long as I mean that I was one of eight rowers who participated in the operation of the boat. But if I'm referring to act of propelling a shell in a race through the act of rowing, "crewed" no longer applies. Once I intend to convey the specific action of rowing, only the word "rowing" is correct.

In sailing, participants use the word "crew" as verb much more frequently than in rowing. As in, "I crewed an America's Cup yacht last year." But if you asked the speaker what they were doing on that America's cup yacht, they would say "sailing."

Ok, so maybe the subject is a little convoluted. And as folks who enjoy the sport, we can correct the misguided crew-speak of our friends and family. But when a popular recreational provider like the Potomac Riverboat Company (PRC) includes the word "crewing" 10 or more time a day in their narration and in front of hundreds of uninformed tourists, it just makes the situation that much worse. So I'm calling on the PRC and all tour operators in the Alexandria area to clean up your narrations and be a part of the the fight to stop one of America's most troubling grammatical issues: The improper use of "crew" as a verb.

Golden Girls

No, this isn't a belated tribute to Estelle Getty (we will miss you Sophia Petrillo). The golden girls I'm referring to are Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. They just knocked off a tenacious Chinese duo to win their 108th straight match and second consecutive Olympic gold. Want to know how freakishly good these ladies are? Two straight gold medal runs without dropping a set.

After Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal the other night, I cautioned that before we start lauding his Beijing games as the greatest sporting feat of all time, we need to put it in perspective. So here's some perspective: May-Treanor and Walsh winning every single set, of every Olympic match at both Athens and Beijing is sort of like Phelps winning every single heat, semi, and final of the past two Olympics. Every time these two hit the beach, they win. Phelps is ridiculous in his own right, but even he cruises to a 3rd place in the semis every once in a while.

Of course, sometimes in swimming it makes sense to hold back in a preliminary round. And there is no benefit to dropping a set in volleyball. But what we're talking about here is dominance. The willpower to enter an athletic arena on an international stage and never submit to the competition. Does such a performance diminish Phelps' achievement? Absolutely not. But it does suggest that there are other Americans at the games putting on some truly amazing athletic performances.

Drink, Freshman!

I read an interesting article on CNN.com this morning. It involves a group of over 100 college presidents who have become signatories of the Amethyst Initiative. The goal of the Amethyst Initiative is to spur public debate about changing the legal drinking age back to 18. Originally, I planned a little exposition piece here about why this is an issue. But let's cut to the chase: On any given college campus, the vast majority of students are going to drink. And of that vast majority, less than half can do so legally.

Lowering the drinking age back to 18 Raising the drinking age back to 21 solves a lot of problems:
-It removes the social taboo of drinking in college. Take away the forbidden-fruit status of booze, and suddenly getting tanked at every possible opportunity doesn't seem as attractive.
-It opens up venues where alcohol can be purchased and consumed legally, and in moderation. Where's the incentive to drink in somebody's basement when you could just as easily have a beer in a bar?
-It frees up police and college resources (money and manpower) committed to a never ending war on underage drinking.
-It presents educational alternatives to the "alcoholic abstinence" stance parents and educators are forced to adopt given the national drinking age.
-It ceases the blatant violation of civil liberties engendered by the fact that an 18 year old can vote, enter into a legally binding contract and serve in the armed forces, but they cannot purchase a beer.

If any of the above items sounds like a good reason to consider lowering the drinking age, then welcome to the club. But of course, every reasonable idea has its detractors. And in this case MADD is leading the charge. Head on over to their website and you will be inundated with quotes from "experts" citing all of the "scientific data" that the current drinking age saves lives. Click through enough of these "expert" testimonials and you eventually work your way to a single line graph which tells us that modifying the drinking age to 21 reduced alcohol related fatal crashes by 32% between 1983 and 1989 for individuals age 16-20. Now, seeing as this is the sole piece of quantitative evidence offered up by MADD, a couple of questions:

-Does this data account for deaths per mile driven, or is the data raw?
-Why are we counting 16 and 17 year olds? We're talking about lowering the drinking age to 18.
-How has the data looked since 1989? Fatalities still going down? Maybe that's because DUI penalties have gotten stiffer and enforcement has gotten more aggressive. Something that would continue to happen regardless of the drinking age. Fatalities up? How could that happen if people under 21 can't legally obtain booze?

I could continue asking probing questions all day, but that would only anger the MADD folks. Especially when they're awfully busy running a smear campaign against college presidents who work the front line of the underage drinking battle and are finally admitting that the system is broken. I'm not sure when MADD turned into Focus on the Family and became a bunch of propaganda smearing zealots, but letting reactionary hot heads determine the social and political landscape in this country has got to stop.

Great Eight

Less than 10 minutes ago Michael Phelps became the Olympic golden boy, winning his eighth gold medal of the Beijing games. The magnitude of his accomplishment is undeniable. For this this Olympics, this week, this moment in time, there is no one better than Michael Phelps.

So let the punditry begin: Is Phelps the greatest athlete ever? Is he the most dominant athlete in a single sport? Is this the greatest Olympic accomplishment ever? Already, the questions are being asked.

What's my opinion? I think we need to be careful about what we say about the performance. We cannot diminish the magnitude of the accomplishment, nor should we call into question the enormity of other athletic feats. Lance Armstrong, 7 consecutive Tour yellow jerseys; Tiger Woods, 15 14 majors in a pro career spanning only 11 years; Michael Jordan, 2 championship three-peats with the Bulls. The list goes on. There's going to be a lot of buzz about Phelps' accomplishment being the greatest in sport. But let's use some restraint, perspective and imagination in trying to qualify the amazing display of athleticism Phelps has brought to Beijing this week.

Olympic Air Supply

I heard it on PTI the other day: "Michael Phelps is sucking all the air out of Beijing." And I thought it was just the smog. But it's a true statement. Michael Phelps' improbable run at eight gold medals has reduced the rest of the Olympics to an afterthought. For the most part, I'm OK with that. Phelps is a dominant performer in most of his events, and he conducts himself with poise and enthusiasm. He's the type of athlete you don't mind being inundated with.

However, there are athletes in other sports that are not getting the typical level of attention. Great example: Women's gymnastics. The other night, the US had two gymnasts with realistic medal hopes. Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin both had the potential to win the women's all-around. But Phelps-mania held the collective attention of the American audience and remains the big story despite Liukin and Johnson's Gold-Silver finish. But is it really all Phelps' fault? Nope.

Much of the reason that Phelps has been permitted to dominate the attention surrounding the games is that he was the only viable storyline the media chose to promote prior to the opening ceremonies. Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor are the two most dominant women's beach volleyball players in the world. They closed out the gold in the 2004 Olympics in Athens without dropping a set. But the dynamic duo didn't get much press heading into games, despite the fact that they're favored for another run to the gold. And as far as gymnastics go, most sponsors that actually sunk money into a specific athlete backed the wrong horse. Shawn Johnson was remarkably consistent, but it was Nastia Liukin who took the gold. Now the pre-games face of the US women's gymastics team isn't the winning face. Oops. Looking at track and field, we have no flamboyant speedsters like Michael Johnson to market, so another Olympic staple loses focus to the goings-on in the Water Cube.

I can't explain why Walsh and Misty-May didn't get more pre-games press, but I have a theory as to why gymnastics, track and field, and the US swimmers not named Michael Phelps don't get much play before the opening ceremonies. The reason: Competitive parity. Back in the cold war days, it was the US vs the Soviet bloc. If the Soviets didn't have a contender in a sport that the US did, nobody else was going to get in our way. But times have changed. The globalization of sport has allowed elite athletes to emerge all over the world. No longer can corporate sponsors and the media predictably crown their heroes before the games. Phelps is an exception, but in coming Olympiads, the media will be less and less likely to celebrate the achievements of an athlete before the gold is in the bag.

The Danny Almonte Reverso

It's official. We Americans may be the world's worst losers. After the US team's poor showing in the women's gymnastics competition last night, the excuses came fast and furious. First came word that Chellsie Memmel was competing with an injured ankle. But then the media seized on the idea that some of the Chinese gymnast were ineligible to compete. And why might these athletes be ineligible? Was it doping? Secret liaisons with the judges? Nope, it seems that three of the golden ladies might be under 16 years old, the minimum age for Olympic eligibility.

Many of you remember Danny Almonte. Danny was the lights out ace pitcher for the Bronx team in the 2001 Little League World Series. Danny seemed to enjoy a distinct height and strength advantage over the other twelve year old players. An advantage that suddenly made sense when investigations after the fact revealed that Almonte was actually 14 at the time. The media circus surrounding the Almonte situation was ridiculous.

Here we are, seven years later. And after an effort that really amounted to a sub-par performance, we are collectively up in arms that our female gymnastic representatives got their asses kicked by a few 72 pound 14 year olds.

So what exactly gives a 14 year old gymnast an edge over an older, larger gymnast? Depending on who's whining about it, 14 year olds don't understand the gravity of the situation and are less likely to succumb to pressure. They're lighter, requiring less muscle mass to execute the same skills and achieve the same velocity of larger gymnasts. Pick your excuse, they all suck. Not because they aren't legitimate, but because you could so easily flip the arguments for the older gymnasts: They're more mature, focused and poised because of their age and experience. Their larger, more muscular bodies make the skills easier, etc. You can spin anything. Ask our presidential candidates.

The bottom line here is that the situation is admittedly goofy. But I'm still conflicted. The part of me that refuses to take a mulligan on the golf course thinks that despite the nature of the violation, it boils down to cheating, and the athletes should be punished. But the part of me that tries to view this event from a cultural perspective thinks this is much ado about nothing. If we're going to be a nation of poor losers, then let's at least stick with excuses that don't get us laughed at. Blame it on the officiating and move on...

Those Who Can't Do... Get TV Gigs

Last night, in addition to the men's 4 x 100, NBC also covered the women's gymnastic qualifiers. It wasn't a great night for the ladies. There were some falls, a dq for stepping out of bounds and one gymnast managed to hurt her ankle between the locker room and the first event. But all-in-all, the women's team still qualified in second place behind the Chinese favorites. Not too shabby. Of course, if you were listening to the three banshees calling the event, you would have thought Marta Karolyi was going to march the whole team out the back of the gym and beat them in an alley. I distinctly remember that the commentators for gymnastics at the past few Olympics have been very uptight, very judgmental and sort of cruel. But this year, they're taking it to a new level. They hammer on the competitors (American and international alike) and make each misstep sound like a grievous sin. Before I go on, let's meet the offenders:
Al Trautwig: I'm not going to go too hard on Trautwig here. He's a career sports reporter, and has no personal experience in gymnastics. His general knowledge of the sport is really sufficient to call a quadrennial event and he makes a nice counterpoint to his buddies in the booth. Which brings us to...

Elfi Schegel: A Canadian gymnast whose career peaked at the 1980 Pan Am Games. Schegel never medaled in an Olympics, and is now almost 30 years removed from her prime, but still feels comfortable tearing apart contemporary gymnasts for minor mistakes.

Tim Daggett: If you've ever done a double take at the unnaturally high voice when a male gymnast is being interviewed, then you probably also grit your teeth while this male pixie damages egos one vicious comment at a time. Daggett is the obnoxious, talkative John Madden to Al Trautwig's fairly competent Pat Summerall.

Aside from the fact that these goons have a vendetta against self esteem, what makes them truly obnoxious is how they never stop to acknowledge the fact that gymnastics have progressed a long way since they last competed. I still think they spend too much time being unnecessarily cruel, but it wouldn't be so bad if they exhibited some class and acknowledged that in their primes they could never do what gymnasts do today.

Not all commentators exhibit this kind of poor behavior. During last night's historic swimming events, Dan Hicks asked Rowdy Gaines what it felt like to hold a world record. Gaines responded by immediately pointing out that the last record he held was now the property of Michael Phelps and was 5 seconds better than his WR time 28 years ago. He copped to the fact that it's a totally different playing field out there now. And I think that gives Gaines some additional credibility, and makes him far less irritating.

There's a whole platoon of gymnasts from recent Olympics who would probably be great in the booth. It's time NBC made an effort to develop some new talent that isn't as dissonant, harsh and out of touch.