What is a NARP?  

Does it stand for some national organization? National Association of something. Or is it like a NARK? A snitch who reports the misbehavior of people. What about a disease? None of those are correct. 

I was curious as to how many people, both athletes and non-athletes, on Ashland University’s campus knew what NARP meant. Because I, myself, just learned about the term last semester from one of my classmates who is an athlete at Ashland.  

So I decided to develop a survey and sent it out to random students, both athletes and non-athletes. Out of 127 responses, 55 of them were AU athletes from baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, track and field, and volleyball. Only ten of them said they did not know what NARP meant. 

On the other hand, 15 non-athletes knew what the term meant.

According to Urban Dictionary, NARP is an acronym for Non-Athletic Regular Person. Someone who does not play a sport for a school or organization.  

Your school’s baseball team probably shouts it when you walk by, “Lookie at these bunch of narps… NARP NARP NARP.” 

So if you are a cheerleader, if you run marathons, train in CrossFit, or play intramural basketball, are you considered a NARP?

This terminology draws a lot of controversy to people who may not be considered an athlete, but enjoy participating in sports for leisure. Or even cheerleaders. I know they get pretty upset because people always say cheerleading isn’t a sport and they’re not listed under the sports tab on the goashlandeagles.com page.

But that’s a whole different arguement in itself.

One of my professors, Matt Tullis, got pretty defensive when he was called a NARP because he runs marathons. If I were him, I would get defensive too. It takes a lot of training to be able to run 26.2 miles.

I, myself, don’t know if I’m considered a NARP. I played soccer up until my junior year of high school since I was 7-years-old and I played softball growing up. But I’m not involved with any sports organization now.

I enjoy going to the gym to stay fit and playing sports for fun. For example, I played on the intramural soccer team for both women and co-ed at the recreation center this semester. Our women’s team just won the tournament, by the way.

So if I don’t play a collegiate sport, does that make me a NARP?

The way I understand the acronym is that if you are not a member of an athletic team or sports organization, you are considered a NARP. Sorry cheerleaders, marathon runners and CrossFit instructors.

What I find slightly offensive in this acronym is the word “regular.” There is no such thing as a regular person. We are all unique in our own ways, which leaves no definition to the word itself. But I guess if you took out that word, the acronym would become “NAP” which doesn’t sound as cool, or as wierd.

In my opinion, I find this acronym to be funny. Nowadays there’s an acronym for just about anything so it doesn’t surprise me that one was made for a Non-Athletic Regular Person.

The athletes have to refer us “regular” people to something, right?