Philly To Dad Vail Regatta: Don’t Let The Door Hit You In Your Flat, Preppy Ass
The Dad Vail Regatta is the largest regular intercollegiate rowing event in the country, and this year, for the first time since 1953, it won’t be here. Why? Good question. According to the Dad Vail folks, it’s all about This Economy; ask Mayor Nutter, though, and he’ll tell you that Philly never even had a chance to negotiate. Smelling bullshit, we asked a couple of rowing aficionados what was the Dad Vail’s major malfunction; their reply was basically, “Who cares? It’s a bullshit race anyway.” Huh? “[The Dad Vail] was/is dog shit crews who don’t row well,” said one expert. Another elaborated: “From 1983 to 2004, for example, Temple won the Men’s Varsity 8 20 out of 22 times. Not once in any of those years did Temple ever win even a medal in the Men’s Varsity 8 at the IRA Regatta, which has served as the de-facto national championship during most of that time… Props to Nutter for telling them to eff off. He knows Quality.” None of this really gets to the heart of why exactly the Dad Vail folks are so eager to hightail it to Rumson, NJ, or whether the race will be back in the future. We just like hearing dudes talk shit about rowing. It takes us back to the old days.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Etes-vous pret? Partez!
November 17th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
When IRAs moved to Cherry Hill, Dad Vails days were numbered. Nevertheless, I’m still proud of my Dad Vail win in ’99!
November 17th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Philly’s a great rowing venue for a lot of reasons, like the proximity of the city itself and Boathouse Row, but the course is not great for sprint races. The lanes aren’t equal, mainly because we have a big turn at the Strawberry Mansion bridge. That’s why we’ll never get anything like world championships.
Head of the Schuylkill has the potential to be a bigger event. That one begins at Laurel Hill Cemetery and runs almost to Boathouse Row, and the boats don’t have to race 6 across.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
One less Kelly drive closure, good riddance.
Have fun driving home drunk through the peoples republic of nj, douchebags!
November 17th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“One less Kelly drive closure while west river, aka MLK drive is also closed. good riddance.”
There, I fixed that for ya. :)
Worst traffic weekend of the year if you needed to get from mt airy to center city.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Rowing or not, you can’t say it wasn’t good shitless boy eye candy.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
er…shirtless…SHIRTLESS
November 18th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Crew is an arrogant elitist sport. Right up there with polo and fox hunting. I’ll shed no tears for the departure of the Dad-Vail or any regatta. For years I lived in East Falls, where the Dad-Vail was a source of ponderous congestion and delay. Jersey can have it.