College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Sometime around half a century ago, while much of the rest of American higher education was instituting football programs that would raise the level of play to nearly professional standards--Dave Carter's beloved Louisiana Tigers come to mind--eight old schools back East went the other way, deciding they would forbid athletic scholarships while keeping their football programs modest.
In both kinds of institutions, the football powerhouses and the Ivies alike, oddly enough, everybody still struggles with exactly the same problem: On the one hand, giving the players the time and support they need to get as good as they can at the game, and, on the other, making sure they get enough of an education during their four years to be able to call themselves college graduates with straight faces.
Is there a way to eliminate this tension? Not that I'm aware of. But in a recent column Dartmouth linebacker Garrett Wymore wrote about it so feelingly that I'm almost happy the tension still exists.
Ivy league football also struggles with its own identity, as the game deals with ghosts of it former glory and an uncertain future. I meet older crowds of alumni that still recall the Ivy’s national football prominence as the current league retains a loyal following but pushes itself further into a self-imposed isolation. Many of my teammates had higher attendance at high school football games but spend countless more hours in college training and practicing for the opportunity to get on the field. The league fights to maintain nostalgia and purity and presents a truly unique college football experience at the expense of its own relevance....
The sport of football has changed with the world around it, but its core culture has generally withstood the challenges of time. No rules can be changed to alter the toughness, both physical and mental, and unity that the best teams show. The team has allowed me to develop close friends and a sense of community that would not have been possible without a few sub-freezing morning workouts running stadiums and toting telephone poles. However, when I leave the confines of Memorial Field and journey onto campus, I also bring along a culture that doesn’t fit perfectly into the curriculum.
In many ways, the conflict between football and the College represents the ultimate struggle between my mind and heart. As a programmed liberal arts student, I have questioned the merits and critically considered the purpose of many aspects of football culture that sometimes defy pure logic. However, the real appeal and justification for the sport resonates with me on a much more visceral level that I will leave to the poets to articulate. You will rarely meet a current player that professes to always enjoy the sport, but there are even fewer that would say they regret their time on Memorial Field.
A tip of the hat to the superb sports reporter Bruce Wood.
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May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Brother Robinson, you are always good for a laugh on a Sunday morning. The NCAA and their big schools don't struggle a bit with this. They don't care. They waste millions of dollars every year handing out worthless degrees to athletes and non-athletes alike.
Since 2000, 635 underclassmen have declared for the NFL draft. That's enough to fill over seven teams with their limit of 85 scholarship players. (Basketball's one-and-done rule is it's own special problem.)
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Random thoughts:
1. As late as 1970, Dartmouth was ranked in the season's final AP poll. They finished 14th, ahead of schools like Oklahoma and Penn State.
2. The tension doesn't always involve trade-offs. Byron "Whizzer" White was a star at Colorado and for the New York Giants. While he was a pro, you found him in the Yale law library between Sundays while he studied to eventually become Justice Byron White. Marcellus Wiley played at Columbia and went on to a successful NFL career in the 1990s. (Peter should know how impressive that feat is - even among the relatively modest talent in the Ivy League, Columbia football sucks.)
3. The University of Chicago was an original Big Ten powerhouse, and supposedly can reactivate its membership at any time. The school dismantled its dominant football program in the 1930s (?) after an embarrassing scandal.
4. When Wake Forest (my alma mater) improbably won the ACC in 2006 and earned an Orange Bowl invite, I went to the game. My wife protested because our youngest son was born in December. My response? "We can have more kids. Wake Forest is never going back to the Orange Bowl."
Oct '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Peter Robinson
....everybody still struggles with exactly the same problem
Are players at big football schools actually part of normal academic and social life in any remotely meaningful way?
Karma is a mysterious thing, but one of only two football games I witnessed back in college was the most legendary face off in Ivy League history -- an event which may actually owe its immortality as "The Game" to the Harvard Crimson crew who came up with the most famous football headline evah: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29. Pity the folks who decided to get a jump on the departing crowds!
Tommy Lee Jones was among the players who got together to make a movie about it in 2008 -- in a sort of Ivy League football pod cast style that you might really enjoy. In fact, if you're chasing down ideas...
Even the half-time show that year brings back memories of long gone, politically incorrect, college days. The Harvard Band, in its emblematically willy nilly way, formed itself into an amoeba and a paramecium, to tell a tale of star-crossed lovers as they morphed into.... a Star of David and a Greek Cross.
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
I'm all for making collegiate sports semi-pro. Allow those athletes who wish to use the opportunity to receive a college degree to remain on a scholarship system. For those involved simply for the sake of improving their trade at their chosen sport, just pay them some equivalent standard and drop the facade about why they're at the university.
Edited on April 15, 2012 at 7:01pmRe: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
A man with the right priorities.
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
One last random thought: I think the final sentence (emphasis mine) suggests a problem with the curriculum, not with football.
Edited on April 15, 2012 at 7:23pmApr '12
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Yet another reason to believe that Universities are in the business of selling an image, rather than providing an education...
Edited on April 15, 2012 at 7:47pmMay '11
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Peter, not to pick too fine a nit, and I'm sure Dave is to polite to point this out, but its Louisiana State University. Just looking out for a fellow SEC fan.
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Well, Harvard has a starting QB in the NFL. Minnesota sure doesn't.
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
I'm paraphrasing, but when Lou Holtz took the Gophers' coaching job he quipped that the team's heart and soul would come from Minnesota; the hands and feet, however, would come from somewhere else.
May '11
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
I don't think its the University as much as it is the Alumni. They want to be proud of their "school" but they don't really think as much about the Physicist Ph.D. that is developing a new battery that will make electric cars viable as they think about the Heisman chances for their prized running back.
If you look at the news broadcasts in any town that has a college football team, you will see something in the sportscast EVERY day about the local team. You won't see ANYTHING in 6 months about the other things the school is doing (unless its a scandal...usually in the sports department.)
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Peace and Blessings Upon You.
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Dave Carter
Peace and Blessings Upon You. · 20 minutes ago
When the Michigan coach wants to make a subtle dig at the Buckeyes he refers to us as "Ohio", not "Ohio State".
Similarly, I'm pretty sure, Dave, that Peter was insulting you. He's probably suggesting that he's better than you because he went to an Ivy League school and you didn't. It's possible he even wants to throw down. :-)
Sep '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Big time college football is an arm of the entertainment industry that happens to be contained inside of Universities. Of course some of the men who play are intelligent enough to get decent educations as well. On the other hand, most of these institutions are in the vocational education business in reality anyway so the odds are against most of them playing in the pros but that is what their vo tech is teaching them. None of this changes the fact that football is a wonderful learning experience and a way for young men to learn - experientially - about teamwork, leadership, competition and mental toughness. One can learn this as well in Thucydides and Shakespeare but when it happens on the field it really sticks to the ribs.
Edited on April 16, 2012 at 2:31amRe: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Scott Reusser
Dave Carter
Peace and Blessings Upon You. · 20 minutes ago
When the Michigan coach wants to make a subtle dig at the Buckeyes he refers to us as "Ohio", not "Ohio State".
Similarly, I'm pretty sure, Dave, that Peter was insulting you. He's probably suggesting that he's better than you because he went to an Ivy League school and you didn't. It's possible he even wants to throw down. :-) · 49 minutes ago
Nah. Besides, I distinctly remember seeing ivy someplace or other at my school.
May '11
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Dave Carter
Peace and Blessings Upon You. · 2 hours ago
And upon you as well.
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Dave Carter
Scott Reusser
Dave Carter
Peace and Blessings Upon You. · 20 minutes ago
When the Michigan coach wants to make a subtle dig at the Buckeyes he refers to us as "Ohio", not "Ohio State".
Similarly, I'm pretty sure, Dave, that Peter was insulting you. He's probably suggesting that he's better than you because he went to an Ivy League school and you didn't. It's possible he even wants to throw down. :-) · 49 minutes ago
Nah. Besides, I distinctly remember seeing ivy someplace or other at my school. · 18 hours ago
Mea culpa, fellers. Jeepers. I haven't felt so embarrassed since I called Mitch Daniels an "Indianan." "Peter," he replied, with that no-I'm-not-kidding look that sometimes appears on his face, "that's Hoosier."
May '10
Re: College Football, Subspecies, the Ivies
Matthew Gilley
I'm paraphrasing, but when Lou Holtz took the Gophers' coaching job he quipped that the team's heart and soul would come from Minnesota; the hands and feet, however, would come from somewhere else. · 21 hours ago
Everybody knows that we Norwegians are slow and uncoordinated. We may even be kinda dumb.