In a message dated 7/10/2003 9:12:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> Right, and if you believe any of the Ivies put athletics before academics,
> you
> are fooling yourself. Just as they don't want 1000's of nerds walking around
> their campuses, they don't want 1000's of "dumb jocks" either. I would be
> willing to bet that all 8 of the college presidents resent the fact that the
> Ivy League was formed originally as an athletic conference. There is a
> reason
> why there is an oft running joke that whenever an Ivy school has any success
> at
> all athletically the academics view it as "too successful" and feel the need
> to
> make it tougher.
>
The Ivies are actually worse off than the scholarship schools. If Columbia
admits 500 male freshman- thirty-five are football recruits and so on. As the
admissions director at Middlebury said- "when Amherst went to a nickel defense
it was like an arms race-we [Middlebury) had to recruit more d-backs.