 November 9, 2002Where Winning Breeds CriticismBy BILL PENNINGTON
The football team has not lost in two years, the women's cross-country team is favored to win the small-college national championship, three other teams are nationally ranked and no team will have a losing record. It would be one thing if this were a one-year bonanza. But for more than a decade at Williams, one of America's most selective liberal arts colleges, the sports teams have been far superior to those at any other college its size (enrollment is roughly 2,000). All this winning has made some faculty members and students uneasy and has stirred a debate more common at the nation's largest universities. At Williams, and similar colleges in the region, the question is: Can an institution prized for its academics harmoniously house a powerhouse athletic program, even as it is defined by Division III, in which recruiting and athletic scholarships are prohibited and in which the football coach can double as the assistant track coach? "We must assert the primacy of academics; we're not here to produce professional athletes," said Stephen C. Sheppard, a Williams economics professor who helped write an in-house report last spring that outlined an overemphasis on athletics. "We're getting uncomfortably close to the Division I model. A great athletic experience does not mean your football team must be undefeated. We always hear about the life lessons sports teaches, so wouldn't the odd loss here and there be therapeutic?" What would George Steinbrenner, Williams class of '52, think of that? As Williams takes its 7-0 football record against rival Amherst College on Saturday in what is called the biggest little game in America, each college has spent the last year in a hand-wringing tug of war over how to balance the pursuit of athletic excellence without impinging on lofty academic missions. This year's freshman classes at Williams and Amherst, for example, were the first shaped under new guidelines established to constrict the number of students admitted because they were top athletes. These students are referred to as coaches' "tips" because they were designated on a list devised by coaches and submitted to the college admissions department during the application process. These students, Williams officials say, have average SAT scores of 1300 to 1350 and are ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school class. The average SAT score for the latest freshman class at Williams, including athletes, was 1408, and those students typically had a class rank in the top 5 percent. The disparity may not seem great, but because 80 percent of applicants to Williams are rejected, every slot in an incoming freshman class of 525 is scrutinized and highly valued. With 66 tipped athletes gaining admission and another 20 applicants admitted who are termed athletic "protects" — those whose grades and scores meet the usual academic standards and who were also singled out by coaches — the number of athletes admitted has led to a campus controversy. Until the recent release of the in-house report, many Williams faculty members had no idea that athletics played some role in the admission of roughly 16 percent of the student body. "When the faculty heard those numbers, there was more than surprise; it was perhaps outrage," said Lee Y. Park, chairwoman of the chemistry department. "There is a significant portion of the faculty that thinks we've gone too far in our pursuit of athletic success." Not surprisingly, members of the athletic community have been bewildered that their success has become a source of contention. With 31 varsity teams, nearly 40 percent of the Williams student body plays an intercollegiate sport. Last year, Williams won 84 percent of its games and earned, for the sixth time in seven years, the Sears Directors' Cup, awarded to the nation's top Division III athletic program. "We should be feeling a lot better than we're being allowed to feel," the Williams athletic director, Harry Sheehy, said. "Although it is a luxury to have these conversations with the faculty. People at other schools wish they had our so-called problem." Still, Williams athletes have sensed a backlash in some quarters. Some say they have been careful not to wear a Williams sports team jacket in the classes of certain professors, who by their public comments are perceived as anti-athlete. "Almost all of the faculty has been supportive," said Garrett DiCarlo, a senior tackle on the football team who is majoring in mathematics and economics. "But I have been treated differently in a negative way by a few teachers because I was an athlete. And on our teams, we will talk about that amongst ourselves: `Look, you might want to take off that Williams football sweatshirt before you go to his class.' " Joyia Chadwick turned down volleyball scholarships at Division I colleges to come to Williams. "It's funny that anyone could call this a jock school," Chadwick, a sophomore, said. "Everyone comes here first for the academics. We want a very challenging, competitive academic environment, but a lot of us also want to have a challenging, competitive athletic experience. So we have the best of both. What's wrong with that?" Few at Williams would disagree, but some faculty members and students would add that it is a matter of balance. They have cautioned that unbridled athletic success can come at the expense of academic excellence. "There is no question the vast majority of athletes I've encountered are committed to their academics," Park said. "But I have had a few students in my classes who were athletes and I wondered why they were here. Academics were secondary to them. We have to do something about that, and we're not the only schools looking into the role of athletics in the same way." Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., joined Williams and Amherst this year in reducing the number of tipped athletes admitted to 66. Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., reduced its number from 99 to 79. The four schools are part of the 11-member New England Small College Athletic Conference. "I didn't disagree with the reductions because we've always had periodic reviews of this kind of thing," said Jeffrey Ward, Bowdoin's athletic director. "I also don't think anything was out of whack. We just reaffirmed our values. But smart kids want good athletics, too. We're probably as successful athletically as we've ever been, and I don't expect that to change." Amherst's athletic director, Peter Gooding, said he thought the reductions in tipped athletes fostered greater harmony between the faculty and the athletic department. "Many of our faculty had no concerns at all, but for those that did, they appreciated that something was done to control the arms race," he said. "I'm not sure there was good reason for concern, but there was a perception that something was amiss. That changed the atmosphere." A key factor in the discussions at each of the colleges was the 2001 publication of "The Game of Life: College Sports and Education Values," by James Shulman and William Bowen, a former Princeton president. The book was harshly critical of the effect athletics has on academics and focused on how small elite colleges, like those in New England, are not immune. The book advanced the phrase "culture of athletics," and it was meant to describe how athletes take over the social fabric of some colleges and hurt the classroom dynamic in others. Some of that was borne out when Williams surveyed its students recently. Morton Owen Schapiro, Williams's president, calls Bowen a mentor and has recently overhauled some housing and classroom policies to moderate some of the effects delineated in "The Game of Life" and in Williams's own study of athletics. He also said that the admissions department would continue to be more stringent about the academic qualifications of all athletes admitted. But Schapiro insisted that Williams would not diminish as a Division III athletic power or lessen its commitment to wildly successful sports teams. He said he thought that athletes had been unfairly blamed in the past year. "It's too easy these days to blame athletes for everything," said Schapiro, whose office shelves contain not just books but also a football. "It would be ridiculous not to court athletes, but it should be done in proportion to how we court other things. We let kids into this school for all kinds of reasons. We're not just good at athletics, we're good in art, theater, at the symphony. "The vast majority of our athletes do very well academically. We're making some adjustments. Soon, it's going to be all athletes doing very well academically." Meanwhile, in his office near the Williams athletic complex, the football coach, Dick Farley, whose record in 16 seasons is 108-16-3, has been focusing on keeping his team's winning streak alive against the only opponent that matters to most alumni. "I've never told the admissions department who to admit and they've never told me what play to run during a game," Farley said. "We respectfully disagree, and sure, there is a tug of war going on right now. But say what you want, when that game starts Saturday, I know what they will want. They'll want us to win." |
ILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Nov. 8 — At Williams College, the fall sports teams are fabulous again. And that is the problem, at least to some on campus.