Date Posted:21:47:24 04/02/04 Fri Author: hc69 Subject: Re: WEEI last night In reply to:
Class of '83
's message, "WEEI last night" on 12:33:29 04/02/04 Fri
The number of sports we sponsor is typical for high quality undergraduate liberal arts colleges. We sponsor 23 compared to 15 or so for most of the schools cited in '83's post. Most of them aren't similar to us, but Georgetown, the one that is, sponsors 22. Sports are a major recruiting tool for high academic liberal arts colleges, especially when it comes to women. High school girls who play sports have higher grades, higher SAT scores, are involved in more extracurricular activities, and are in general more well rounded than are girls who don't play sports. They're the girls every liberal arts college wants. And they do better in college too. For the seven schools mentioned in '83's post, the average graduation rate for all male students is 71 percent and for male athletes it's 69 percent. For all female students it's 77 percent and for female athletes it's 80 percent. You won't find a director of admissions anywhere who badmouthes Title IX.
The opportunity to participate in intercollegiate athletics is an important reason why students, especially women, choose to come to HC. Many who come here thinking about playing won't play, they find they're not good enough or the time committments are too much. But they probably wouldn't have come in the first place without the opportunity to play. While only a quarter of HC women play sports, it's not unreasonable to assume that the opportunity to play was an important factor in the decision of many of the others to matriculate.
So when you compare our sports sponsorship to similar undergraduate liberal arts colleges, we're not in the least atypical.
I believe all PL schools have about 28 varsity sports give or take one. Some don't have hockey, others may not have baseball or crew. Giving students an athletic opportunity is important to attacting high quality student achievers. There is more to college life than the books. All PL varsity athletes take their sport very seriously. Some do drop the sport after a few years as the competition from new students gets better every year and they may want to concentrate on studies. In addition, I think many students in non-revenus sports already resent the funding that goes to FB and BB. There is more interest in these other sports than you may think. For instance, Colgate just completed construction of a new million dollar boat house for crew. Lots of schools have crew and it will attract many students.
The exception is American. It could be argued that American should not be in the PL. The have been giving scholarships in all sports for a long time, don't have football or baseball because of the lack of fields, have a low number of varsity sports and don't really fit academically.
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Re: AU Field Space -- DFW HOYA, 20:25:09 04/04/04 Sun
American has field space for baseball and football.
Reeves Field is home for soccer and once hosted AU's club football program in the 1970's. A nearby intramural field hosted AU baseball before it was dropped.
Bucknell sposors 26 varsity sports. I suspect you missed the distinction between indoor and outdoor T&F (M & W). If correct, can probably add two to the totals for the other schools as well. Not a terribly important distinction, but when you hear the varsity sports counts for other schools, they report these as distinct sports.
BU's count was at 28 prior to dropping Wrestling and mens crew to club status as a part of the plan to achieve compliance with Title IX. At the time this decision was made, the school indicated they could not afford to continue to add womens teams to achieve proportionality.
