The following is redistributed with permission from the Daily Gazette,
Schenectady, NY, 12/22/96.
--
                                   Sports
                       Sunday, 22-Dec-96 11:30:00 EST
 
Tough Sell
 
Strict financial aid policy makes recruiting Div. I hockey players
difficult for Union
 
"The school is academic oriented . . . I don't think they're ever
going to get to a point where they want to start awarding athletic
scholarships."  Kevin Sneddon Union assistant coach
 
By KEN SCHOTT
Gazette Sportswriter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCHENECTADY - Maintaining its principles and a competitive Division I
hockey program at the same time is a constant struggle for Union
College.
 
Union grants aid to all student-athletes - including hockey players -
on the basis of need. And that puts it at a huge disadvantage when
competing for recruits with other members of the diverse Eastern
College Athletic Conference Division I league.
 
Three of the ECAC's 12 teams - Clarkson, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute and Vermont - offer outright hockey scholarships. St.
Lawrence will award its first hockey scholarships next year.
 
Six other schools are Ivy League institutions that don't offer
athletic scholarships. Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton
and Yale, though, are able to attract top-notch players, thanks to
their reputations as excellent academic institutions with established
hockey programs.
 
Colgate, like the Ivy League schools, has a solid track record in
academics and hockey and does not give athletic scholarships. It does,
however, offer preferential aid, which the student-athlete is not
obliged to pay back or work off through a work-study program.
 
"Without scholarships, and without the big Ivy League name, it's a
tough draw," Union senior defenseman Andrew Will said. "The thing
you've got to rely on is the quality of the program and the name you
can build for the school. The education you get at the school is one
of its strong points."
 
Since becoming a Division I program in 1991, Union has had mixed
results.  The Dutchmen missed the playoffs in their first two
seasons. They qualified for the postseason the next two years,
finishing sixth in 1993-94 and 10th in 1994-95. Last season, Union was
eliminated from the playoff race on the next-to-last night of the
regular season.
 
In five seasons, Union has compiled a 37-87-13 league record and has
defeated every team in the ECAC at least once. Union athletic director
Dick Sakala is happy with the direction the program is going,
especially its association with the Ivy League teams.
 
"People like to have that kind of company," Sakala said. "For Union,
that's company that everybody feels positive about."  Careful steps
Even though the hockey program is Division I, all other sports at
Union remain in Division III. The college has been diligent in making
sure that all sports are treated equally.
 
"There was a very, very strong feeling that, philosophically, we did
not want to separate our hockey student-athletes from the rest of our
student-athletes," Sakala said. "There was a lot of discussion and
thought that went into that. I don't see that changing at all. We
didn't want hockey players being treated differently than other
student-athletes on campus.
 
"If you start to give the grant-in-aids at an institution like Union,
you are clearly separating them, philosophically."
 
Consequently, Union must go after players who have some talent and a
good academic background.
 
"We're not going to recruit the same player Michigan does," said Kevin
Sneddon, who is in his fourth year as Union's assistant coach and lead
recruiter. "We're not going to go head-to-head with them if they're
offering a full scholarship. If it's a walk-on situation, maybe we do
have a chance.  But there are players out there. You have to realize
realistically who we can and can't look at it."
 
Although Union is following the Ivy League tradition of not giving
athletic scholarships, there is a difference in the way the schools
provide financial aid.
 
"The problem we have with the Ivys is that they have different tier
packages," Sakala said. "They stay within need but, for example,
Harvard might have an `A-B-C' package where a kid who, maybe a hockey
player, somehow may be bumped into an `A' package category. It's all
on need, but within that need basis, the `A' package might have a
minimum job-loan combination. At Union College, the job-loan package
is the same for everyone."  Other selling points Although Union
dispenses neither scholarships nor preferential aid, it has other
enticements for hockey prospects. One is its superb academic
reputation. The other is the chance to play right away.
 
"One selling point is you are new, you are upcoming, and there are
opportunities for players to come in and establish themselves perhaps
more immediately than if they were to go to a program that was more
prestigious," said Union head coach Stan Moore.
 
Will was one of 15 freshman players recruited for the 1993-94
squad. It was the Dutchmen's biggest Division I recruiting class as
they continued to make the transition from Division III.
 
Will, from Willowdale, Ontario, received overtures from Brown and
Yale. But he decided on Union because he said it was the first school
to show an interest in him.
 
"It was obviously going to be an opportunity to play," said Will, who
is the team's captain this season. "That was something that I easily
wanted to do.  I didn't want to sit around and not get a chance to
play."
 
Union will go through a similar process after this season. The
Dutchmen will need to replace 14 players - the 13 seniors remaining
from the 1993-94 recruiting class, plus right wing Boe Leslie, who
left over the summer following his sophomore season to play
professionally in Europe.
 
The opportunity to play right away this season attracted freshman
right wing Ryan Campbell of Orleans, Ontario. But what also got
Campbell interested in Union was the school itself.
 
"What my parents and I read in the Union brochure is that there are 11
students to one teacher," Campbell said. "That really attracted my
parents to the school because at home, there's 1,000 students to one
professor. The time a professor can put into working with you [at
Union], you can't beat that."
 
"There's a lot more to life after hockey. You have to look towards
that."  No scholarships It is doubtful that Union will ever offer
hockey scholarships. Even if it wanted to, the college would have to
petition the NCAA to get permission to do it because hockey is the
only Division I sport at the Division III institution.
 
Clarkson and RPI, where hockey is also the only Division I sport, can
still give scholarships because those schools were exempted through a
grandfather clause following an NCAA reclassification process in 1987.
 
"The school is academic-oriented," Sneddon said. "They award students
based on that. I don't think they're ever going to get to a point
where they want to start awarding athletic scholarships."
 
Will agreed.
 
"The only Division I sport at a Division III school is a tough
situation," Will said. "The way the school administration wants to go
is to maintain the financial aid aspect. Education is always the thing
that you stress. They don't want to get away from that."
 
One ECAC coach said there are some advantages to being a
non-scholarship school like Union.
 
Clarkson coach Mark Morris, who was an assistant at Union in 1984-85,
has been on both sides of the issue. He was an assistant at
St. Lawrence from 1985-88, when the school wasn't giving
scholarships. At Clarkson, he has the luxury of awarding scholarships.
 
"At a scholarship school, you can't afford to make a mistake," Morris
said.  "Oftentimes, you're dealing with a kid who has a bit of an ego
and a bit of a reputation as a specific kind of player. Sometimes at a
financial aid school, you may just have to recruit numbers; you go
after 10 kids to get five that are going to be contributors. During
that time, you're going to come across some hard-working kids that
have things to prove. They don't need their egos stroked."
 
If Moore could change one aspect, he would like to see Union give
preferential aid.
 
"It might be an opportunity to explore," Moore said. "It would be nice
[for it] to become a reconsideration. Probably, not so much from this
office alone, there has to be a campus-wide intent and posture to feel
that they're all in agreement that this is something we need to do to
be competitive.
 
"We're having a good year right now, but with the loss of 13 seniors
and all that experience, the question has to be answered as to whether
or not you want every fourth year to be a huge rebuilding year. If
that's the posture of the school, then that's the way it has to be
run."
 
reply to Gazette Newspapers: [log in to unmask]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
--
Jim Teresco '92, '93G - [log in to unmask]
Lab Manager - Union College PASTA Lab, http://www.pasta.union.edu
Visit the Union Hockey Pages at http://www.vu.union.edu/hockey
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.