Tag Archives: Oral

Alumni Legends – Stabbing in Boston

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Title: Legend of Stabbing and PR

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Verbal
    • Subgenre:   Folk Narrative, Legend
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: USA

Informant Data: Jeffrey Gao ’18 is a 21-year-old Asian-American male light-weight rower from San Diego, CA. He has rowed before coming to Dartmouth, and walked onto Dartmouth’s D150 Lightweight Rowing team.

Contextual Data: 

Social Context: Another legend is that of a previous rower for the D150 team. This legend is typically told by upperclassmen to the freshmen when they join, especially when the training becomes more rigorous. Because the D150 Light-Weight Crew team revolves around competition, mainly in the form of races against other college teams, it is a highly demanding sport that requires near daily practices and continual weight-cutting and exercise.

Cultural Context: This legend 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 mental toughness and discipline of past rowers, and continue their legacy by devoting themselves to the sport. It is shared by every member of the D150 team.

Given that this is a legend, there are also multiple variations of this story, which makes sense given the unfixed form of verbal lore.

Var 1: Against the wishes of his coach, a previous  member of the team spent a day in Boston for fun, keeping this a secret. While there, he was stabbed, but still had to return to school for training. Keeping his injury a secret, he then did a test piece on the ERG and pulled off a personal record that day as his blood soaked his jersey.

Var 2: When a previous member of the team was going home one night, he was confronted by muggers and was feeling really rattled as he ran away. When he went home, his roommate noticed that he was bleeding because he got stabbed, but he didn’t realize because his adrenaline was pumping. Rather than telling his coach about his injury, he continued normally during practice, but his wound opened up and his uni became bloody.

Collector’s Name: David Oh

Alumni Legends – Josh Konieczny

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Title: Legend of Josh Konieczny

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: Another legend, similar to that of Ian Accomando, is that of Josh Konieczny, who was also a star rower for D150. 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 Josh Konieczny is told to rowers as they discuss past achievements and compete at races in order to provide motivation.

Cultural Context: Similarly, the legend of Josh Konieczny 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 – 9:46):

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…”

Transcript (10:07 – 10:31):

WS: “… Josh Konieczny was in the Olympic boat that came fifth at the last Olympics, um…”
BC: “Right.”
WS: “… and so having him on the world stage, and knowing that he was once in our shoes…
literally in our shoes, and uh…, we’re wearing his kit, um…, is… is really motivational and makes
you work harder. Like you can be this good if you work this hard.”
Collector’s Comments:

  • Similar to the legend of Ian Accomando, this Alumni Legend also claims to be historical and portrays an actual person or event. Josh Konieczny is a former Olympian who prominently won fifth at the last Olympics, 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

Alumni Legends – Ian Accomando

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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