For my purposes, an athletic scholarship is one given to a student because
of a specific athletic skill they possess...that is to differentiate it
from a scholarship based on need or academics given to a person who also
happens to be an athlete who will play for the school... that said, let me
ask about the Ivies in the ECAC as it relates back to the mid and late
60s.
 
 I was at RPI from 60-64, the last two years of the Ned Harkness era.
 When he left for Cornell (I believe in 1963-64 season but could be wrong)
and after all the crying and screaming died down in Troy, everyone was
convinced that "now that Ned had a lot of scholarship money (implication
"athletic" scholarships) he would eat up the college hockey world, and we
all know what happened, he did, with players like Ken Dryden, and even has
the only undefeated season, I believe, at 29-0 or some such back in
69(?)... I don't know how many NCAAs he won, but he sure was another notch
up on the success ladder than when he was at RPI where I know he did NOT
have athletic scholarships and managed to win (OT vs Minn, I believe in
1955 with 12 players!) once...
 
my question is:  does anyone know for sure that perhaps there are (or
were?) different classes amongst the ivies?  Someone has posted they know
for sure that Dartmouth for example, absolutely does NOT give athletic
scholarships.  Do the others?  Ralph Baer (I believe it was him) has said
that RPI has given them since 1980.  What about the rest of the ECAC?  In
spite of respecting a so-called academic index, does this make it tough on
the schools that don't?  Is this the reason why there always seem to be 3
or 4 extremely weak teams in the ECAC or is it just because it is the only
12 team league?
 
Maybe some could comment on these queries next week in the lull between
games after the results of this weekend are well posted!
 
Thanx.
 
Tony Buffa
RPI '64
 
Go Engineers!!