23 Dec
AS a gesture of hailing the hundredth Anniversary of Yangon University, I have been writing articles in the Global New Light of Myanmar about the glorious and significant events, sport-club activities, Myanmar culture & fine arts clubs’ activities and other activities of Yangon University (formerly known as Rangoon University) which were held within a hundred- year period . (From 1920 to 2000). Indeed, we can proudly say that University of Yangon (current name) is the mother of all universities in Myanmar who has given birth to brilliant and versatile graduates. In addition, those graduates became patriotic leaders, world prominent figures, celebs, artists, brilliant sportsmen and sportswomen as well. Those of the graduates have glorified or dignified our country in many aspects from 1920 to 2020 so far. Moreover, they are eligible or qualified enough to take part in nation building tasks
Since I am an alumnus of Rangoon University, I feel so inclined to write about the sport activities such as football, tennis, swimming and boat-rowing and so on. I intend the readers to learn or recount the fame and glory of Yangon University apart from its curriculum and knowledge bank imparting or disseminating to students of all majors (Arts and Sciences majors). Yangon University has continuously nurtured all major students with the well-qualified faculty and advanced curricula to date.
Football, tennis and boat-rowing had been the most popular sports with the students of Yangon University (Rangoon University) during the early years of 20th century. At that time, playing football was the most popular game with the Rangoon University male students. Second to football, boat-rowing was the most popular with the students indeed.
Rangoon University Boat Club was founded in 1923 by Law Professor Sir Authur Eggar. The Club had financial assistance from Sir Authur’s Trust with a handful of members and a locally built clinker-canoe for 12 paddles. A golden opportunity arose in 1923 when the University accepted an invitation from the Regatta authorities who were staging a special show in honor of the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford’s visit to Burma to participate in Burmese laungs (မြန်မာလောင်းလှေ) in the amateur class in the regatta. In order to make his members participate in the special programmed boatrace on Yangon Kandawgyi lake (ရန်ကုန်ကန်တော်ကြီး), Mr Eggar rented two Myanmar traditional boats named ‘Paddamyar’ and ‘Zawgyi Pyan’ (ပတ္တမြား ´´နှင့် ``ဇော်ဂျီပျံ ).Then the club team had successfully participated in that special show of boat race. This was the birth of the Club in a most informal manner. It had only a handful of members barely sufficient to man a pair of nineoar laungs (မြန်မာလောင်းလှ).
Rangoon University Boat Club launched the inaugural ceremony in August, 1924. RUBC (Rangoon University Boat Club). Actually, it was formed with University College and Judson College. Afterwards, the club imported the English rowing -boats from England.
From the very beginning, it had no land of its own for a building site on the Inya Lake, nor any boat. The members had nothing to meet the needs of a rowing club but only their blind faith in their President_ Mr. Eggar and their absolute determination to follow his lead. There were neither grand schemes nor rash promises. But a few months after the Royal Lake (ရန်ကုန်ကန်တော်ကြီး) Regatta, the Club became the proud possessor of a locally built 12- paddle clinker-canoe in addition to few Myanmar laungs (မြန်မာလောင်းလှေ) (Myanmar long and narrow racing boat) and bauktus (ဘောက်တူလှေ) (clinker-canoes) on loan.
The University authorities placed at its disposal as a temporary measure the University Swimming beach promontory where a zinc shed was built to house boats coming out form England. The students of Yangon University those wishing to become members had to learn how to swim before entering Yangon University Boat Club. When they became good swimmer, they were admitted to get membership of the boat club. Then they were trained to be the crew members or rowers. Since Mr Eggar was a rowing enthusiast and he wanted to develop the rowing club in the Yangon University. In addition, Mr Eggar encouraged the University students to join Yangon University Boat Club. Thus, some university students those keen on art of rowing as a sport and became the crew members as well as boat club members.
Between the year 1930 and the year 1935, Rangoon University Boat Club owned two eightman English rowing boats, two four-man English rowing boats, one-man English rowing boat and one eight- man barge (used for rowing training) The rapid progress of the Club within a few years was also due to kind patronage and assistance given in every possible way by Payataga (donor of Koe-htat-Kyee Buddha image)(ကိုးထပ်ကြီးဘုရားဒါယိကာ) U Kyaw and U Nyo. In 1925, U Kyaw bought two Myanmar laungs ( မြန်မာလောင်းလှေများ) named “ Min Gaung Kyaw and Hla Shwe Hintha (``မင်းခေါင်ကျော်´´ နှင့် ``လှရွှေဟင်္သာ ) and donated to Rangoon University Boat Club. N.B. (မြန်မာလောင်းလှေ) (Myanmar long and narrow racing boat)
Later, the name — Rangoon University Boat Club was renamed Yangon Universities’ Boat Club in order that the students from other Universities in Yangon could join or register as the club members. (Note; after Rangoon University was established in 1920 in the propinquity of the Inya lake (Victoria Lake) in Yangon Kamayut township area, the other Universities and colleges such as Medical College, Dental College, Rangoon Institute Technology (RIT) and Institute of Economics etc. were gradually established at the various places in Yangon local area. All those students from respective Universities and colleges can join Yangon Universities’ Boat Club and practice rowing in line with the rules and regulations of the club. The generous contribution of U Nyo enabled to move to the present club site with spacious new boat house in 1927. The rowing club members acquired discipline and rowing spirit through hard training. Normally, they would become a bunch of amateurs in the rowing sport.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
By: Tommy Pauk
