The rise and fall-and return-of the class rush: A study of a contested tradition

The class rush or scrap involving a roughhouse public sporting competition is an American collegiate tradition that arose in the early nineteenth century. In this essay, the circumstances that led to the custom's rise and fall along with the ensuing controversies over the appropriateness of the tradition to student life are examined. Analysis of the traditions relevance to the construction of masculinity and adulthood applies social psychological concepts of "narcissism of minor differences" and "play frames".