Thu 8 Feb 2018
Place of Athletics at Amherst
Posted by David Dudley Field '25 under Amherst at 6:41 am
A reader pointed out this 2016 report: The Place of Athletics at Amherst (pdf). It is similar to the 2003 MacDonald Report from Williams. You can be certain that 90%+ of its factual reporting would be the same at Williams. Worth going through for a week?
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8 Responses to “Place of Athletics at Amherst”
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Anon88 says:
I think yes. It’s an interesting report. As I remember, I read it a year ago, there are many conclusionss with which I disagree. It implies that the are a problem per se while I think that large teams are great.
February 8th, 2018 at 8:36 amAnon88 says:
There’s also this article in Slate on Wesleyan football:
https://slate.com/culture/2017/12/wesleyan-university-football-is-good-business.html
February 8th, 2018 at 8:37 amfembot says:
The Wesleyan article posted by Anon 88 is a good read. Before he left Williams, Mike Whalen asked what the succession plan was for Harry Sheehy, and he got a big yawn from Williams and decamped for Wesleyan. Williams then had a huge affirmative action fail when it hired his replacement for football and the whole program tanked. Too bad Williams hadn’t been interested in keeping Mike Whalen on as Sheehy’s successor. He was a great guy and he had a very nice family as well. Williams’ loss for sure. It’s not surprising that he has been so successful at Wesleyan.
February 8th, 2018 at 12:55 pmDick Swart says:
Yes, five days may be a bit much but whatever.
I know the questions on football. Yet, to at least this ancient grad, the Williams/Amherst game is of great importance!
February 8th, 2018 at 2:09 pmDoug says:
Really interesting article, Anon88. Thank you for sharing.
Two things:
1.) I have serious trouble believing that donations to Wesleyan increase significantly due to the success of the football team (mostly moderate success, keep in mind). We’re talking about a hyper-liberal small college in CT. Are there seriously donors who base their donations off of the success of the football team? Even if there are people who participate in the alumni fund based on the football team’s record, I bet that they’re not the major donors that the college cares about most. This seems like such a feeble reason to expand a football program, and I would love to see the numbers that let them make such a strong claim about causality.
2.) I am also incredulous that Colby is spending more than one-quarter of its endowment on a new athletic facility. For more perspective, the $200 million price tag is more than half of Bates’ endowment, a college that I consider more reputable. They claim they are building the facility to enhance the local economy, but they projected it would generate just one million dollars in additional revenue for the town each year. Weird that they’re taking the angle of community betterment to justify such a project; they should have just built the town a stellar new library or community center and still built themselves a f**king $175 million dollar sports complex. Colby isn’t known for its academics, maybe that money could have gone towards attracting an entire new generation of heavy-hitting professors. (Also, I know that the $200 million isn’t entirely coming out of the endowment, but if the college had that sort of fund raising potential you’d wonder why the college’s finances aren’t better, or other more essential facilities aren’t being updated).
February 8th, 2018 at 11:22 pmfrank uible says:
By what metric is Bates “more reputable” than Colby?
February 9th, 2018 at 10:18 amKSM says:
@frank, Bates has a pretty substantial honors thesis program, with oral defense before an academic committee including an outside expert (typically a professor from another institution). Bates pays for all this. I believe the only other LAC with a program like this is Swarthmore.
February 9th, 2018 at 1:27 pmDoug says:
@frank, I said “that I consider” — it’s my opinion. This is largely based in my experience of seeing which of my friends matriculated where back in high school. Colby seemed to take on a lot more of the rich/white crowd, while Bates enrolled more of the serious students. I’ve also spent time on both campuses and thought Bates had a nicer campus and location. On paper I think Bates and Colby are similar, however. But if I had to choose between the two for myself, I’d choose Bates in a second.
February 9th, 2018 at 1:50 pm