Title: Legend of Ian Accomando

General Information about Item:

• Genre: Oral
  • Subgenre:   Folk Narrative, Legend

• Language: English

• Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Wyatt Smith ’19 is a 20-year-old male caucasian light-weight rower from Hong Kong. He is a long-time rower, having rowed competitively before Dartmouth, and was recruited to Dartmouth’s D150 Lightweight Rowing team.

Contextual Data: 

Social Context: The D150 Light-Weight Crew team revolves around competition, mainly in the form of races against other college teams. In addition, it is a highly demanding sport that requires near daily practices and continual weight-cutting and exercise. As such, many rowers rely on legends to remind them of past glory and to motivate them to continue with the sport. The legend of Ian Accomando is told to rowers as they discuss past achievements and compete at races in order to provide motivation.

Cultural Context: The legend of Ian Accomando is passed down verbally from one generation to the next and is an effective way to create a sense of common knowledge and unity within the team. Every team member hears this legend and because the hero is someone that also was on D150, he is easy to relate to.

Item: This item is an oral piece of folklore that focuses on the passing down of a Folk Narrative, specifically a legend, that is suppose to help motivate rowers to live up to the glory of past rowers, and continue their legacy by devoting themselves to the sport. It is shared by every member of the D150 team and is retold whenever rowers need motivation.

Associated media:

Transcript (8:59 – 10:06):

BC: “In regarding the legends for example, right, who are some legends that, um, you guys talk about? Like what did they do and why are they important? And why do you guys keep talking about them?”

WS: “Um… it’s, I think, we all think it’s really important to remember the guys who came before us. Um, especially because a few years ago ten… five, ten, fifteen years ago, we were one of the best teams in the country…

BC: “Right.”

WS: “… and we had some amazing, great rowers on our team. So it’s important – we see it as important – to remember the past rowers who came before us to motivate us to work harder and to remember who were… you know we have this kind of… we have to uphold this legacy that they left us…”

BC: “Right, right.”

WS: “… and to remember them. So some guys that I can name are Josh Sans, Ian Accomando, um, Josh Konieczny. And Ian Accomando is now a coach at Harvard and we see him now and then, but he was known to be just this amazing rower who would go and party hard, but he would show up regardless of how tired he was…”

BC: “Uh-huh.”

WS: “… or how busy he was…”

BC: “Right.”

WS: “… and he’d show up and be the best on the team and work harder than anyone else. So it’s showing that you can balance your life, and you can show up and work really hard.”

Collector’s Comments:

• These Alumni Legends are interesting because much like the typical legends we see in Folk Narratives, they claim to be historical and are meant to portray an actual person or event. Ian Accomando is an actual person who was on the D150 team, and continues to see the team as a coach at Harvard, so it’s easy to see this legend using his image and heightening it to build motivation in current rowers.

Collector’s Name: Brian Chekal