Bob Gross writes:
>   What is right?  As a faculty member, I never thought I'd feel that
>standards should be "bent" for admitting athletes, but that is exactly how I
>have come to feel.  Although an academic education should be top priority at
>any College or University, there are other important aspects as well,
>including sports.  Student athletes contribute the their schools in important
>ways that non-athletes do not.
 
Whether bending standards for admitting athletes is "right" or not (and I
don't think it is), I doubt very much that you'll ever see Dartmouth do it,
because the Ivy League is very sensitive about such things.  There was quite
a flap a few years ago when Columbia was toying with the idea of lowering
their admissions standards a bit for athletes basically because of the
dreadful performance of its football team.  It's true that the Ivies tend to
be snobbish about being Academic (with a Capital A) institutions, but *any*
college that decides to sidestep or lower a few standards in order to
"improve" its athletics is damaging its integrity and its reputation.  While
integrity and reputation don't pay the bills and don't usually put the W's
on the board, they are important for attracting top-quality faculty,
researchers, and students -- which, after all, is more or less the business
that colleges should be in.  Athletics are important -- as Mike mentioned,
they do generate a lot of name-recognition for a school and make it easier
to attract students -- but they need to be kept in their proper place.  And
that place is, or should be, secondary to academic concerns.  Fortunately,
it does not appear that college hockey faces anywhere near the problems that
college football and basketball do in that area.
 
By the way, I think the Merrimack-Jim Hrivnak incident that Mike wrote about
should be framed and put up on every athletic director's wall.  That was
handled just the way it should have been.
 
Peter Kester writes:
>                        Admissions at top schools frequently comes
>down to non-academic criteria that separates a candidate from the rest
>of the pack.  This could include having a special skill (playing
>guitar while standing on your head :-), having spent a significant
>amount of time in a foreign country, or having played a varsity sport.
>IMHO, the capability to contribute to a schools varsity program should
>be considered very highly as a specialty skill.
 
Colleges often refer to a desire for "well-rounded" students, and that's all
well and good, as long as they are not using that as an excuse to slip a few
athletes in who are sub-par academically.  If a college is looking at two
prospective students who are similar academically and meet or exceed the
institution's standards, I have no problem with them rating the varsity
athlete higher than the non-athlete.  (Well, yes I do, but it's personal
jealousy, so we'll ignore that)  What I *don't* like is when colleges rate
an athlete who is below the academic standards higher than a non-athlete who
is above them.  This happens to a degree in college football and basketball
(perhaps due to the pressures these two big-money sports create), and I
don't want to see it start happening in college hockey.  It probably won't,
but in my opinion, it's best to be safe.
 
>Bowdoin has since limited the rating to either +1 or 0 and is
>considering doing away with ranking altogether in order to downplay
>athletics.  I think that would be a bad move, as a good sports team
>(hockey is Bowdoin's only money sport) brings in revenue from tickets
>as well as from increased alumni contributions.  This increased
>revenue can help enrich the academic environment for all students.
 
Increased alumni contributions can certainly do that, but the revenue
generated from "money" sports (ticket sales, TV contracts, tournament
winnings, whatever) often goes right back into the athletic budget.
Theoretically, that money supports the non-revenue-producing "minor" sports
-- but that isn't always the case either.
 
>Against popular opinion, athletes can also be good students.
 
No argument there.  A lot of them are.
 
Mike Machnik writes:
>    I don't think it is necessary to "let the hockey players slide" to be
>    competitive in Division I.  This is the argument used by some of the
>    ECAC/Ivy people as to why their teams don't do as well - that THEY
>    put a higher priority on academics than other schools/leagues, so
>    it's ok for their teams to be awful.  Well, I'm here to tell you that
>    this argument doesn't wash.  Many of the best schools in the country
>    have fantastic hockey programs - BC, BU, Wisconsin, Michigan, to name
>    just a few, and their players are students too.
 
While they are not Ivy League schools, BC, BU, and Michigan are about as
competitive academically as the Ivies, and Wisconsin is not far behind
(these ratings come from the Barron's Guide, not me).  However, all four of
these schools offer athletic scholarships in hockey -- a powerful incentive
that is not available to Ivy schools like Dartmouth.  I don't think it is
"ok" for schools to use the excuse of academics to explain away lousy teams,
although it is understandable.  There are, however, highly successful hockey
programs at top-notch schools which do not offer athletic scholarships.  For
example, Cornell and Harvard, both of whom have fielded winning teams for so
long that they've built up a tradition that is tough for other schools to
recruit against.  St. Lawrence and Colgate are two other colleges which are
very competitive academically and offer no athletic scholarships, yet have
managed to turn their hockey programs around.  Both of these schools were
pretty awful back in the late 70's (the Saints actually established an ECAC
record when they lost 26 games in the 1979-80 season), and both have become
quite successful of late.  Both of them have been NCAA runner-ups in hockey
(St. Lawrence in 1988, Colgate last season) in addition to becoming fixtures
in the ECAC playoffs.
 
It doesn't look good for Dartmouth this season, but I think they can improve
eventually.  My understanding from an earlier post by Bob was that the Big
Green used to have an athletic director who was not a major supporter of the
hockey program, which would certainly hinder any efforts to improve the
team.  I hear that the new director does support hockey -- that's a good
start.  Dartmouth may also have to recruit somewhat more extensively than
they are doing now (I don't know whether it's possible to increase the
hockey budget, or whether some restriction applies).  Coaching will
obviously play a big part in any potential turnaround.  I know these are
pretty vague suggestions, but the fact remains that it's been done at other
universities (and fairly recently), so it is possible.
 
If it doesn't work out, I would rather see Dartmouth drop out of the ECAC
than see them mess around with any academic standards.  I seriously doubt it
will come to that, although Army is leaving the ECAC in part because they
felt they could not field a competitive hockey team in the league, what with
the restrictions they have.  (Although it appears that they will still
schedule some contests with ECAC teams)
 
Incidentally, although morale on the Dartmouth team is probably pretty low,
it might have a ways to go to reach the level on the University of Pennsyl-
vania team in 1978.  Penn at that time was a member of the ECAC, but they
had not been competitive for years.  Anyway, they were playing at Cornell on
January 28, and their leading scorer, Tom Cullity, stayed home and got
married rather than accompany his team to Lynah.  Now, marriage is pretty
important, but why he would set a date for the middle of the season, on the
night his team had a game is beyond me. (The Quakers missed Cullity -- they
lost, 11-2).  Anyway, the administration made the decision to drop the
hockey program after that season, and the team was not told until after word
had leaked to the local press (in February of '78, I believe), which only
made matters worse.
 
One other note from Mike's posting:
>                              Sure, there will be the occasional incident
>    here or there - but when was the last time you heard of a hockey team
>    being placed on probation in Division I?  The last NCAA team I recall was
>    Plattsburgh - and they are in Union's conference, the ECAC West.  I
>    think the last Division I team was Denver, nearly 20 years ago.
 
This actually happened 12 years ago.  Denver was the number one ranked team
in Division I at the end of the 1977-78 regular season, but they were
ineligible for the NCAA tournament because they were on probation for
recruiting violations.  This may have been a moot point, however, as Denver
was upset in the WCHA playoffs by Colorado College.
 
Bill Fenwick
Cornell '86
LET'S GO RED!!
 
"They came out with that survey in _Newsweek_ last year -- did you see this?
 It said if you are a single woman over 30, there's a less than 20% chance
 you'll ever get married.  They should do another survey.  They should find
 out how many women over 30 ever bought _Newsweek_ again."
-- Rita Rudner