Carnegie Currents: March/April 1999, Vol. XIII, No. 2
What’s In a Name?
Ever wonder how our rowing club got its name? Here’s a short history on the subject.
The club was founded in 1985 as an initiative of Larry Gluckman, the Princeton Heavyweight coach at the time, and five official founders. The founders were Homer Zink (deceased), Stuyve Pell (still a member), Janet Howe (our first President), Livingston Johnson (the computer expert who makes the Belly and the Chase run smoothly) and Elon Foster. Larry moved on to coach at Dartmouth and now is the marketing director for Concept II.
In one of the early planning meetings, this group and Ted Nash, the Penn AC and National Team coach, discussed the name of the club. Ted suggested Carnegie Lake Rowing Association because an acronym, CLRA, could be used. There was some concern about using this name as it referred to our lake as "Carnegie Lake," while the official name is "Lake Carnegie." Some thought the University would be upset. No one seemed to notice or care. Therefore, the club was born as Carnegie Lake Rowing Association or CLRA.
The early members didn’t like to refer to the club as CLRA. It sounded too much like "Clara." It reminded us of Clarabell, Howdy Doody’s clown friend. Could Flub-a-Dub, Princess Winterspring Summerfall, Phineas T. Bluster, Dilly Dally and Chief Thunderthud be far behind? Many of us avoided using the acronym and just referred to the club as the "Carnegie Lake Rowing Club." To refer to us as an association seemed a little stilted.
Andy Card, one of our early coaches and Princeton Freshman Lightweight Coach at the time, started to refer to us as the Lakers. Everyone latched on to the label and began to use it. Never mind that the NBA has a team in Los Angeles with that name. After all, we have a lake and they only have a basketball court. They stole it when they moved from Minneapolis, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Also, there are seven colleges who have the Lakers, including Clayton College and State U. (Morrow, GA), Grand Valley State U. (Allendale, MI), Lake Superior State U. (Sault Sainte Marie, MI), Purdue U.-Calumet (Hammond, IN), Roosevelt U. (Chicago, IL), Mercyhurst (Erie, PA) and Mary (Yankton, SD).
Oh well, I think we can share the name, and anyway, it is much better than CLRA. Andy left for Yale where he is now the Lightweight coach as well as a National Team coach, but he left the nickname here for us in Princeton. Thanks, Andy. The name stuck and we are now known worldwide as the Lakers.
On one long road trip to an out-of-town regatta, idle chatter turned to the development of an official cheer. Rich Bartolomeo gave birth to his parody of the children’s rhyme, Rub-a-dub-dub*. It went something like this:
Rub-a-dub-dell,
Eight men in a shell,
And who do you think we be?
Not butchers, not bakers, but Carnegie Lakers,
We’re rowing to victory.
Many members only remember that Butcher, Baker and Carnegie Laker were titles given to our stratification plan developed in 1995 and renamed in 1998. Let the record show the nickname and the cheer preceded the now relabeled groupings.
The long version never really caught on, but a shorter cheer has been used occasionally.
Butcher, Baker, Carnegie Laker
I like it because it meets all the requirements of a good cheer: it’s short, it rhymes, it’s unique and it’s nonsensical. Perfect. I say, let’s use it more.
*Rub-a-dub-dub
Three men in a tub,
And how do you think they got there?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker —
They all jumped out of a rotten potato!
’Twas enough to make a fish stare.
Or if you prefer,
Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,
Turn them out, knaves, all three.
I think Rich’s version flows better.