Donor group opens doors for Hall of Champion visitors

Swarthmore College's board of managers recently announced that the school will drop football, wrestling and women's badminton.

Swarthmore will retain 21 intercollegiate sports.

School officials cited a desire to focus on fewer sports and a desire to recruit fewer student-athletes as the cause for the changes.

"We believe that reallocation of resources to a smaller number of sports will enable the college to achieve a level of excellence in athletics that we haven't enjoyed for many years, while Swarthmore maintains its academic distinction and leadership position in American education," said Alfred H. Bloom, Swarthmore's president.

The board reportedly accepted the recommendation of the Swarthmore athletics review committee, which has said it based its recommendation on what appeared to be irreconcilable demands from athletics and admissions about the number of students in each incoming class. Swarthmore's total enrollment is about 1,400 students.

According to committee members quoted in the Swarthmore newspaper, The Phoenix, the athletics department requested that 32 percent of each incoming class be devoted to "slots" for athletes.

Coaches were allowed to recommend players for admission at the beginning of the admissions process, and then coaches could check on the status of applicants later in the process. However, a slot recommendation by a coach was not a guarantee that a player would be admitted.

The faculty advisory committee had recommended that only 10 percent of each incoming class be devoted to such slots.

"Ten percent did not adequately support intercollegiate athletics, and the full number of slots was just too big for the college," said athletics review committee Chair Jennie Keith. The committee began with 10 percent and worked up.

"Fifteen percent looked to us to be realistic to meet the goals that we had set for the athletics program."

Under the old slotting system at Swarthmore, 12 of the school's 24 sports received slots and the number of slots on each team varied widely, with many of those slots going to the football team.

Under the new system, college officials also are proposing "tip" and "impact" slots. A tip slot is "less than a slot," Keith told The Phoenix, and would give recommended players only a slight edge over other applicants. Impact slots would give applicants the greatest advantage.

"We're acknowledging that there are a few cases where a player may make a great impact on a team," Keith said.

Student-athletes have participated in a number of protests on the campus, many sparked by the public discussion of slots set aside for student-athletes in the admissions process.

"The ARC and the board may not like it, but they are sending a message to the student-athletes here that they are second-class citizens, that being an athlete makes you different in a negative way -- that slotted athletes are not smart enough to be here on their own. They had to make an exception for us," wrote Kate Nelson-Lee, a lacrosse student-athlete.

"And by reducing the percentage of recruited athletes, the ARC and the board are saying that they don't want to make such exceptions -- that we are not worth it."

Calling all coaches

The Women's Sports Foundation is seeking to recognize outstanding coaches at the grass-roots level for their commitment to coaching female athletes.

Coaches from the following categories may be nominated: NCAA Division III, NAIA, community college, junior college, high school, middle school, elementary, community recreation and youth.

The winners will be honored at the Women's Sports Foundation's Annual Summit May 3-6 in Scottsdale, Arizona, and will receive a $500 donation to a sport team of their choice.

The deadline for nominations is February 5. For more information and nomination forms, see www.WomensSportsFoundation.org or call 800/227-3988.

--Compiled by Kay Hawes

Number crunching

The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, has appeared in 50 bowl games with 28 victories, the most of any Division I program; however, the Crimson Tide did not earn a bowl berth this year. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which will play Kansas State University in the Cotton Bowl, is now nine appearances behind Alabama, followed by the University of Texas at Austin at 10 back. None of the top three teams in bowl victories will be able to increase their totals this year after not having been selected to participate in postseason play.

Looking back

December 1997 -- The deaths of three student-athlete wrestlers at NCAA institutions during the previous two months during weight-loss activities prompts NCAA committees and the sport's national governing body to review the issue. The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports, the NCAA Wrestling Committee, USA Wrestling and other concerned parties participate in a conference call December 16 to determine if changes in the rules and guidelines regarding weight loss are necessary. Extensive changes were made in weigh-in rules after the Wrestling Committee's April 1996 annual meeting, following a series of meetings and conference calls with the competitive-safeguards committee. Each of the three student-athletes collapsed after workouts, and medical personnel were not able to revive them. (The NCAA News, December 22, 1997)

December 1987 -- A nationwide survey conducted by the University of Cincinnati indicates that nearly one-third of NCAA Division I football programs violate NCAA regulations, and when they do, coaches often look the other way. However, almost three-fourths of the coaches surveyed also said they believe most of their colleagues are honest, have high standards and want to run clean athletics programs. The pressure to win was cited as the main cause of cheating. "By and large, I think most coaches want to run a clean program with no cheating and, in most circumstances, don't want to be placed in a position where they have to look the other way," said Francis T. Cullen, one of three Cincinnati criminologists who conducted the survey. "But we also have a situation where the bottom line is winning; and if coaches don't win, they lose their jobs." (The NCAA News, December 7, 1987)

"I don't know anything about a camera, but I sure as hell am gonna learn."

-- 1977 Theodore Roosevelt Award winner Gerald B. Zornow talking to University of Rochester baseball coach Lou Alexander after being asked in 1937 by the Eastman Kodak company to become one of a group of 12 trainees. Zornow, an accomplished three-sport athlete at Rochester, went on to become Eastman Kodak's chairman of the board.