Whether he meant to say it or to simply infer it, Shulman makes a gross overgeneralization: Student-athletes who participated in football were at Swarthmore College to play football. On the contrary, students who choose to participate in athletics at Swarthmore come to this institution first and foremost for a top-quality, small college, liberal arts education and the opportunity to participate in one of many extracurricular and educational experiences. Participation in a sport is an educational avenue outside the traditional classroom. If your priority is football (or any sport), why would you come to Swarthmore? To presume that our admissions office accepts a student with a particular sport interest for the sake of the sport alone would be the same as presuming that our admissions office accepts a student with a high SAT score for the sake of our overall SAT average alone. This is simply not true.

As the American writer Herman Melville wrote: "Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other?"

Karen Borbee
Associate Professor of
Physical Education/Head Women's Lacrosse and Field Hockey Coach
Swarthmore College