This article is featured in the 2024 Freshman special issue.
For incoming freshmen, the transition to college is often accompanied by a raft of anxieties as students adjust to a new home and unfamiliar faces. Almost immediately, Dartmouth’s social hierarchy goes to work, sorting students into one of two categories: non-athletic regular person — known colloquially as a NARP — or, for the remaining quarter of new arrivals, varsity athlete.
While NARPs often befriend students from their First Year Trips groups and residence halls, many athletes find an early sense of belonging and camaraderie at Dartmouth among their teammates, coaches and training facilities, according to former and incoming athletes.
Even before athletes arrive on campus, teams work to integrate first-years into their system and the broader Dartmouth community — for example, by forming group chats and reaching out to incoming athletes. Over the summer, Virginia Averyt ’28, a recruited track and field runner, said she first learned the word “blitz” — which is on-campus slang for an email — through online exchanges with her teammates.
“I was on a blitz chain with my teammates, both first-years and all other class years, and our task was to share our summer recaps with each other,” she said. “The girls were so hysterical, and I was amazed to see what my future teammates were doing. It felt like I had a digital scrapbook into their lives.”
Fostering relationships with upperclassmen was also crucial for Ryan Tripp ’25, who said he was the only recruited lightweight rower to the Class of 2025. After recruiting Tripp — who intended to join the Class of 2024 before deciding to take a gap year — the College wound up cutting its lightweight rowing program in July 2020. Tripp said he still planned to come to Dartmouth and row with the heavyweight crew team as a member of the Class of 2025. However, when he arrived on campus in the fall of 2021, the lightweight team had been reinstated — a reversal made six months after the initial cut.
“Most of my initial friends on the team were older athletes, and initially that was really amazing because the upperclassmen helped guide my own decisions and gave advice on all sorts of things, rowing and otherwise,” Tripp said. “That really helped ease my transition, both academically, athletically and socially.”
Now the team captain, Tripp said he has been “intentional” about welcoming and integrating members of the Class of 2028 onto the lightweight team. For Tripp, this process has included full team zooms and individual calls with each first-year student.
“We want to be sure first-years get to know the older guys because I think age is one of the harder gaps to bridge,” he said. “We welcome them through meals, team cabin nights and check-ins throughout the fall, because freshman fall is a very tumultuous time for most people. We want to be abundantly clear that the team is here to support each other.”
The lightweight rowing team meets six times a week for training starting in the fall and continues nine times a week through the spring, which leads to team building, Tripp explained. While the team races in the fall, the spring is the most intensive season for competition. If rowing were strictly a spring sport, the team would be “very different,” he added, explaining that being “immediately forced to spend a lot of time together” leads to a more cohesive cohort.
Lightweight rowing head coach Trevor Michelson explained that — unlike some other team sports — first-year rowers take part in competitions and demonstrate their value almost immediately. Upperclassmen additionally pair up with first-year rowers “to help ease the transition” to the team, Michelson added. Within their pairs, the upperclassmen help the underclassmen by providing advice regarding transitioning into academics and managing course loads while they are in season.
“Because rowing has no bench, everyone who’s on the team plays a role in regattas,” Michelson said. “With everyone on the team racing, freshmen are treated just like seniors during their first season. Freshmen are expected to train at the level we’re training at, which is usually a step up from high school.”
Payton Weiner ’25, a member of the women’s cross country and track and field team, said her teammates offered an instant support system when she joined nearly three years ago.
“My favorite part of transitioning onto the team was probably having a built-in social calendar,” Weiner said. “As a freshman, you can’t be part of a Greek space, but on the team my first year, I felt like I was in my own sorority of first-year girls. Because the women’s running teams are close with the men’s team, we all have a table at [the Class of 1953 Commons] that we always eat at.”
In terms of her social identity, however, Weiner said running did not define her freshman year.
“I felt like track was a really big part of my identity, but I didn’t feel like it was the only part of my identity,” she said. “And everyone on the team did a really good job of embracing everyone for who they are and not really having everyone to blend into this one track stereotypical person.”
Sophie Wiener ’25, a member of the women’s swimming and diving team, said older athletes have several traditions to welcome incoming first-years, including teamwide group chats before getting to campus.
“We always make a team GroupMe and send a bunch of funny pictures from past years to get people excited,” she said. “We like to say that we’re showcasing our team culture. The team also has a Zoom call with all swimmers and coaches to get the freshmen acquainted with the team before they come to school.”
Wiener also said the team prepares new swimmers for Dartmouth life out of the pool, with sophomore teammates sending incoming freshmen swimmers a document introducing the members of their class and describing different Dartmouth sayings.
“A core memory for me was when the seniors showed me all the different dining locations on campus when I was a first-year,” Wiener added. “To prepare for classes, upperclassmen send first-years an email with information about class registration, orientation and other important academic notices.”
While some students are welcomed to varsity teams before even arriving on campus, Weiner also said first-years can join varsity athletic teams after they matriculate. She explained that being a walk-on athlete “doesn’t mean that you’re not [going to] have a really good trajectory moving forward.”
“On most athletic team websites, there’s recruiting standards and walk on standards, so if you hit that time and you’re interested in joining the team, 100% reach out to the coach and captains,” Weiner said.
Adam Alto ’25, this year’s lightweight rowing commodore –– the rowing equivalent of a co-captain –– was a walk-on his first-year, showing that walk-ons are “treated just like everyone else,” according to Michelson.
Weiner said walk-ons are embraced by the track and field community just like recruited athletes.
“If you’re on the team, you’re invited and included in everything,” Weiner said. “For me, I can’t even tell who the walk-ons are or who the recruited athletes are.”
Michelson said there is a “special” nature of being a varsity athlete and encouraged first-year students to commit completely if they are considering joining a team.
“It’s one of the few things in your life you can only do for four years,” Michelson said. “So if you have the opportunity to walk on to a team and you’re interested in doing it, go all in.”
With her first year of Dartmouth about to begin, Averyt is looking forward to exploring more team traditions.
“I know there are so many traditions I have to look forward to with the team lore,” Averyt said. “Sometimes my teammates will reference something, and I don’t exactly know what that is, but I’m so stoked to find out.”
