By Charlotte Nichols Hoya Staff Writer

Natacha Heffinck/The Hoya Freshmen crewers line up for a show in New South, part of the team’s “Spirit Week.”

As each new season begins, teams unite for practice and play. During the annual return to fields, courts and waters, teams must rekindle the bonds between players. For the Georgetown crew teams, spring is marked with novice rowers parading through campus with heavy wooden oars and signs clearly marking embarrassed freshmen. Laughter echoes through Red Square and New South as boat bonds are forged anew.

Floating up the walls framing Red Square came the music of serenading women. A new a cappella group? Not exactly. The girls stood in line,sporting jeans and matching shirts, to show their pride as freshman members of the women’s crew team. With faces decoratively painted, they bellowed out the Georgetown fight song and kicked off the annual tradition of crew initiation – Spirit Week.

Several teams at Georgetown both on the varsity and club levels use initiations and traditions, which they say increases unity and builds a sense of team spirit. Sometimes sentimental, often embarrassing and meant to be funny, these traditions serve to unite each year’s players with the next generation in a common bond of sportsmanship and friendship.

“It could have been embarrassing by yourself, but it wasn’t because we were all doing it together and it was helping support crew,” senior Varsity Co-Captain Marie Frank said of her freshman year Spirit Week.

Spirit Week is five days of tasks and traditions completed by the freshmen novice rowers before their annual training trip to Cocoa Beach, Fla., over spring break. On the Sunday night beginning Spirit Week, each rower was given a list of the tasks, which included outfits to wear, people to meet and songs to be sung. Organized by the teams’ sophomores every year, Spirit Week has become a tradition for the freshmen, according to crew captains.

“The main goal of the week is for the freshman girls to bond together, work together and get to know each other. We put it before spring break on purpose so that there’s a lot of team spirit right before training week,” said senior Varsity Co-Captain Kate Johnson.

The biggest part of Spirit Week was the all-day carrying of the oar, which is more than 10 feet long.

“Everyone on the team had to carry an oar one day, and the lightweight [novice] guys had to try and steal our oars for their initiation,” freshman Victoria Wilson said. “The most fun was all of us going from class to class and guarding them. The best were the various defense strategies we had in the cafeteria and stuff, and getting them back when they were stolen.”

Trying to get the awkward oars into classrooms and up and down stairwells was challenging, but “most of the girls said they had a really good time,” Frank said. Frank and Johnson participated with the rest of the varsity team in observing and playing leadership roles in the week’s activities.

Every day the girls had a routine. They would sing in Red Square at 1 p.m., do any number of “jumpies,” a leapfrog-like exercise, every time they saw a member of the varsity team, eat with other rowers at every meal and always wear their long-sleeved team shirt. In addition, each day had specific tasks, including wearing signs, walking backward for a portion of the day and keeping an ergometer rowing machine in constant motion in Red Square.

The men’s lightweight crew team holds a similar type of tradition as the women’s team, called “Team Week.” Also leading up to the training week in Florida, “the point of Team Week is to create spirit,” said senior varsity lightweight Captain Jeff Anchukaitis.

“The guys have to wear shirts and ties during the week, the point being that they dress as one and look as one. There is no `I’ in crew, only `we,'” Anchukaitis said. Besides dressing alike, the men’s lightweight team has to take an oar into downtown Washington, D.C., and take team pictures at places around town.

“They also have some sort of eating competition where they’re broken up into two groups and told to bring either milk or cookies. They have a contest for who can finish first. This year the milk group actually finished first, but a lot of it came back up,” said Dave Weiss, a captain on the heavyweight varsity team.

As with the women’s team, the men’s Team Week is primarily organized by the varsity underclassmen because the seniors won’t ever row with the group of initiates since the seniors will graduate by the time underclassmen reach the varsity level.

“We like to have sophomores and juniors be hands-on with what goes on,” Anchukaitis said. “It hopefully will speed the cohesion of the team next fall.”

The men’s lightweight team, however, adds an additional twist to the purpose of these team tradition weeks.

“The secondary function is to teach team humility,” Anchukaitis said. “In rowing, it’s important for a team to be humble. No matter how great they think they are individually, they can’t achieve anything without the rest of the team.”

The men’s heavyweight team reduces humility by holding their tradition week in Florida during Georgetown’s spring break rather than on campus to avoid the hassle of class schedules and midterms.

Traditions usually include painting their class year on a giant wall, writing Haiku poems for the varsity men, learning the names of the varsity members, videotaping some sort of prank, borrowing a uni-suit uniform from another team and wearing it all day, performing water ballet in the hotel pool, reciting episodes from Celebrity Jeopardy! on “Saturday Night Live” and carrying around an inflatable “Love You” sheep.

“The idea is that they carry it around at all times and don’t let any of the other teams steal it,” Weiss said.

In addition, the guys only shave one half of their face for the week while letting the other half grow.

“At the end, we ask them what they think of this and that, and most of them have a good time with it,” Weiss said. “The best feedback is whether or not they do it and how enthusiastic they are about it.”

According to an August 30, 1999 story on CNN, 80 percent of college athletes have been victims of hazing, according to a new study funded by Riedman Insurance Co., which insures colleges and universities and carried out by Alfred College.

The survey defined hazing as “any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses or endangers, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate. Twelve percent of students reported they had been hazed, which does not include activities like carrying team equipment, team parties with community games and going out with teammates “unless an atmosphere of humiliation, degradation, abuse or danger arises,” according to Alfred College President Edward G. Coll, Jr.

The Georgetown crew teams’ activities do not adhere to “hazing” standards, as all spirit-building activities are voluntary and designed with team fun in mind.

“It’s supposed to be a team-bonding, team-building thing and it’s supposed to be fun,” Frank said. “We’re trying to make the group stronger. And it gives you something to look back on. I know I will always look back on my spirit week and reminisce. It gives you that connection with your teammates.”