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Subject: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: Bengal [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 13:48:13 12/08/21 Wed I am putting out an All Points Bulletin: Find the Culprit(s) who initiated this football player reduction over the next 4 years. Joe: Gather up Mannix, Cannon, Columbo, and Kojak and get on the case. Acobber: you have your sources. I understand the earlier report from a Cornellian wherein Archer remarked that the average class over the next 4 years is being reduced by 10% is correct. Whose idea was this? The pandemic adjustments have not resulted in more football players being admitted, just likely several more on our campuses for a couple of years. If coaches think they have too many, they can voluntarily take a few less in a given year. There are short term and, more seriously, potentially long term consequences. In the short term, if 3 guys decide to adjust their academic calendars to use up their eligibility at their current school, it is not a big deal. Although even then, if the players who opt for that last Ivy season are not in positions that their coaches would have filled from incoming recruits, it is a minus. I see no compelling reason for this reduction at all. But so be it. The bigger risk is that this reduction is made permanent. At one time, our schools had freshman, jv, as well as varsity teams. Then the limits were put in, at one time 50 per year, then 35, and currently 30/120. Until now. Fifteen or so years ago, there were rumors of a reduction to 25/100 but that was averted. Hughes and Seidlicki separately told me that such a reduction would put jv games at risk. I doubt any recruit's goal is to play jv, but that is where they use and get accustomed to the varsity's schemes and get some lower level game experience. The other issue that arises over time with fewer numbers is a greater risk of injury: fewer players getting more repetitions in practice and in games. Whether that becomes a serious concern with 130 vs. 118 vs. 100 I will leave to the coaches. An overarching concern to me is, we already have the fewest number of recruited footballers in several decades. This just seems like a gratuitous swipe at varsity athletics, or at least football. If the League does this, how soon will they place further restrictions on the number of recruits allowed on varsity teams? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: The Source of The Problem is Finite Undergraduate Student Body Sizes Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:07:14 12/08/21 Wed I have nothing against rugby, women's rugby or women's sports, but I often wonder why schools such as Harvard and Princeton so proudly announce new varsity sports as though sponsoring more sports is necessarily better or more prestigious than sponsoring fewer. Supporting more varsity sports on any campus costs money and creates tension. That's one reason why Power Five universities typically field 15-20 sports, in contrast to Ivy League colleges which might have 30-40 separate teams in their athletic departments. The biggest problem at an Ivy League institution is admission slots. As we know from personal observation and anecdotal evidence such as the Varsity Blues scandal, these precious golden tickets are worth much more on the open market than one might guess. Undoubtedly, football recruits are being cut back in part because Ivy League faculties generally view football and men's basketball recruits as the sports where the greatest academic sacrifices are made to field a competitive team. I think that men's hockey probably deserves to join that holy trinity but, whatever the specifics, that's why pressure is being placed on football teams to field smaller teams. I'll say it right now. No Ivy League school needs to field a women's rugby team. Posters on this site applaud and sing the praises of Princeton for raising women's rugby to varsity status. And sure, when viewed in isolation, who would be against giving more opportunity to women's rugby players? I've got nothing against these women athletes. But nothing can be viewed in isolation. In the context of the larger athletic department and especially the entire cohort of admitted high school students at all eight Ivies, adding women's rugby just creates more pressure to cut back elsewhere. And right now, that "elsewhere" is football. Stop adding new sports. Stop women's rugby from making progress as an Ivy sport. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: I have a better idea Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:17:52 12/08/21 Wed Keep women's rugby. Drop swimming/diving, golf, and lightweight crew. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: I have a better idea Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:31:52 12/08/21 Wed Sure. I'm not advocating against women's rugby in particular. I'm saying the faculties at our Ivy universities are sick and tired of teaching student-athletes which they believe are a cut below the remainder of the student bodies. That is the ultimate source of the pressure to cut back on recruited athletes. And you can sympathize with the general lament from professors. At tiny Dartmouth and Princeton, recruited athletes make up almost a fifth of the student bodies. You want to keep women's rugby? Sure, drop something else. The broader point is stop adding more sports, Harvard and Princeton! Stop it. And in the case of women's rugby, stop it before it reaches critical mass to be sponsored by the Ivy League, until and unless, as GG wants, swimming/diving and lightweight crew are also dropped. (It makes less sense to drop golf, where the squads have about a half dozen athletes each. Golf ain't the problem.) [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: The Source of The Problem is Finite Undergraduate Student Body Sizes Author: Bengal [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:26:07 12/08/21 Wed On the contrary. Princeton has bloated the size of its undergraduate body and continues to do so. Before the advent of women, an overdue change, there were 3200 undergrads. That has steadily increased. Penn at one time within recent memory was at 7,800. isn't it around 10,000 undergrads now? And as I said, we used to have many more recruited football players within our lifetimes. There is no need for further cuts. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: The Source of The Problem is Finite Undergraduate Student Body Sizes Author: Joe Friday [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:57:29 12/08/21 Wed I just came off a zoom call with the TV detectives listed above, and I was able to get the following feedback from them prior to their naps which will be followed by their group attendance at the early bird special where they will all wear trench coats and pinky rings while loudly cursing and attempting to solve before anyone else the mystery of the the height and weight of the person who made the gravy for the grilled chicken to be served at exactly 5 PM: Covid: some IL coaches will say out loud privately that 120 at this level was already borderline unmanageable/hard to keep newer players motivated, especially with JV play having gone away. Add the intermediate term roster bloat caused by Covid and you won’t/don’t see coaches howling in protest over modest roster reduction, which the TV sleuths say will, in fact, be permanent. The bigger management problem there is with the transfer portal and the inability to be 100% confident of what your future actual need is, because you don’t really know with certainty who is coming back, what class are are they in, do they contribute, what kind of depth in that position group do you have if they don’t come back, etc…all of which is a good reason to NOT have roster reduction in order to allow programs some degree of flexibility/ability to pivot quickly. The recruiting boards will begin(?) to resemble pro draft boards to include the variables of “free agency” (the portal). IL Presidents inexplicably caving to “pressure” from their respective faculties, separate and apart from their own closeted anti-athlete bias. You don’t need me to paint that picture, but I do wonder exactly what that “pressure” really amounts to other than the incessant whining like the army of snowflakes that they are. If some football and or basketball players are supposedly not up to the task academically (as per the nuances of the respective schools’ AI), then let them flunk out and those programs will think twice about throwing the dice on that kid in the lowest band. In the interim those outraged academics can always turn in their resignations and give it a shot in the real world….yeah, I didn’t think so… The group had no strong feelings about the other sports mentioned, let alone whether they had any role in reducing the football numbers, which is highly doubtful. None of them make real money - if any - but their consensus was to live and let live. Expand away, but don’t weaken other programs to do so. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> Subject: Joe (and Acob) Author: Bengal [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 17:47:11 12/08/21 Wed Joe: Retire that crew to the Home for Retired Detectives. Call in Sipowicz, Renko, Inspector Morse, and Poirot on the case. The coaches could not have initiated this, and besides, far easier just to take a few less yourself if you think there are too many footballers are on your own roster. Plus, some of these coaches seemed to have taken pretty close to the average of 30, covid or not. I don't think it was Robin Harris, she is more implementer than initiator (unless directed by the Presidents to cook something up). There are faculty hostile to athletics, but also some who are favorable. Stay on the case. I don't think we have solved it. The game's afoot. Acob, where are you, old salt? [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Joe (and Acob) Author: Joe Friday [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:09:40 12/08/21 Wed Coaches would not unilaterally disarm, and while no one has suggested that the coaches themselves initiated any of it, my sense is that they would privately acknowledge that it’s not a mountain to die on either if it were to be imposed on them, which seems to be the case….I like the variety of characters you’ve listed there, though I’d never list Sipowicz with Morse or Poirot, but it is still a free country for now. I will stick with the grittier characters from the 70s, though I may bring in Magnum so they can tease him about his hair and mustache - not sure. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: The Source of The Problem is Finite Undergraduate Student Body Sizes Author: Two Cents [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:46:09 12/08/21 Wed May offend a few on this board, but the following sports should all be moved to club team status at Ivy schools. And there should be no financial or admission assistance involved with athletes due to their involvement in these sports: Squash Sailing Skiing Fencing Equestrian Archery Men’s and Women’s Water Polo Men’s and Women’s Rugby [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: The Source of The Problem is Finite Undergraduate Student Body Sizes Author: Go Green [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 14:53:50 12/08/21 Wed Not my impression that men's rugby has varsity status at any Ivy. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: M3 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 18:05:14 12/08/21 Wed The battle being waged is that the IL faculties feels there are too many jocks and not enough academic superstars. My personal observation is that without the athletic folks IL schools would be nothing more than academic incubators. Presidents, proceed with caution. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 22:31:42 12/08/21 Wed Clearly, the issue raised by M3 has been the central question at Ivy colleges ever since admissions achieved some semblance of selectivity in the 1960s: Whom should we admit? I have always felt that the Harvard admissions office said it very well when Fred Glimp quipped, "We're not trying to admit the best students. We're trying to admit the best alumni." That is the role a great university should play in society, developing the best and the brightest to their highest potential to contribute the most to the world at large. We could have a long discussion about how best to do that. But clearly the simple starter question is, "Among the groups which have a favored status at the admissions office (recruited athletes, underrepresented ethnic minorities, alumni legacies, development cases -- that is, rich people's kids), which groups ultimately do go on to contribute the most to the world at large? Conversely, we should be cutting back on the groups which do not. Only so many musical chairs to go around. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: Brown Fan [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 18:08:24 12/08/21 Wed The poster who said this is about admissions slots most likely is correct. It's doubtful that the remaining Ivy football fans will be turned off by the perceived slight decline in the quality of play due to the reduced roster size, whereas the reduction creates 12 more slots at our institutions -- .24% in an overall undergraduate class of 5000 (and double that if you're only looking at males). Moreover, I would imagine that the former recruits 28-30 at Harvard may find homes at schools that find recruiting more difficult, so this could help provide a bit of league parity given the challenges in evaluating recruits. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: OLD LION (BANDS?) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:08:24 12/09/21 Thu The key question is if the reduction is targeted to a specific band. MY recollection is that there are three bands and that band three is the lowest academic band. If I am correct I wonder if the reduction will be directed to band 3. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: Acob (Illuminating words) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:22:53 12/09/21 Thu Former Brown Dean of Admissions James Rogers in addressing a gathering of classmates; “ I could but shall not, admit and fill the class from the Bronx High School Of Science”. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: Acob (Illuminating words) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 13:30:05 12/09/21 Thu Former Brown Dean of Admissions James Rogers in addressing a gathering of classmates; “ I could but shall not, admit and fill the class from the Bronx High School Of Science”. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Attention Joe Friday and Acob: APB Author: Joe Friday [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 20:52:08 12/09/21 Thu Traditionally there are four bands. The top two bands are where most of the players fit, including most (if not all) of the early decision guys. There’s a decent but smaller handful in the third band and then there are (allegedly) a much smaller number (no more than a few) in the lowest band. [ Post a Reply to This Message ]