Eastern Sprints.

The biggest race of the year for so many crews in the region can only mean one thing—shopping.

Because of NCAA restrictions, women’s heavyweight rowers are not allowed to “shirt race” like the men’s teams are, which means that when teams get the chance to pick up an opponent’s shirt, they make the most of it. Eastern Sprints, when everyone trades for each other’s shirts, is that rare chance. Some teams opt for the “classic” apparel, whereas others try to be more creative.

Here are some of the fashion highlights from last year:

-MIT Lightweights: A chain necklace depicted on the shirt. What did the necklace read? MITPAIN. I liked it. I wanted it. Unfortunately, all the lightweights have to weigh less than 130 lbs., and I don’t. So that plan went out the window.

-COLUMBIATCH. Subtly squeezed in the corner with only three letters or so per line, you had to look really closely at the shirt to see what it read. “Columbiatch” was also fit just below a small crown. Definitely one of the popular shirts.

-Yale: Sultans of Swing. Hard to argue with two-time defending national champions. The Bulldogs didn’t end up going 3-for-3, but they took the Sprints title, barely edging out our 1V, which was named Crew of the Week by row2k afterward.

-Quaker Boats. The shirt I ended up getting. I was very happy with my choice. We had just beaten Penn in the Petite Final of the first novice race, and I was really excited.  The shirts had the Quaker logo on the Front and Nutrition Facts on the back. Plus oatmeal is delicious, just like…

-Clif Bars, our shirt. The back was a huge picture of a Clif bar, with “RAD” vertically written just before the CLIF, making it a Radcliffe bar. The logo was a picture of Weeks Footbridge and it was Cambridge Crunch Flavored. Yum.

What does our team have up our literal sleeves this weekend? Guess you’ll have to wait and see. See you all in Camden.