A Look At The Early Commitment Concept

The Brown Daily Herald has an in-depth look at what it means for a student-athlete to "commit" to an Ivy League school before being formally admitted. Much of the well-done story centers around the legendary "likely letter." Find the story here. A few out-takes:

"The verbal commitment is from the athlete's point of view," said Garrett Leffelman '11, another recruited men's basketball player. "It lets all other schools that are recruiting the athlete know, 'No, stop recruiting me.' "

"I believe likely letters are unfortunate because they suggest that Brown and its Ivy League competitors are putting athletics first and academics second," (Howard Chudacoff, a professor of American history and Brown's NCAA faculty representative) said. "We justify these letters by saying we must send them out to be competitive with schools that offer athletics scholarships and because other Ivy institutions send them. That is probably true, but still unfortunate."

Brown also sends "likely letters" to about 100 non-athletes - "to top students" - each year during the regular decision process, just as other Ivy League schools do.

An editorial in the Brown newspaper comes out against likely letters.

Columbia coach Norries Wilson responds in similar fashion to Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens when asked if it is time to start playing younger players in a Spectator story:

"I’ve been asked by some if I’m going to scrap the season, throw the young guys in there and start spring practice in November, but it’s my personal opinion that that’s not the right thing to do,” Wilson said. “I owe it to the kids that gave four years of their life in football to put the best kids I think give us a chance to win the game on the field on Saturday, and that’s my full intention.”

Dartmouth-Brown figures to be a pretty close game if you can believe the ranking services. Here's how the College Sporting News' Gridiron Power Index rates Dartmouth and its opponents in the FCS field:

• 12 Yale
• 14 New Hampshire
• 25 Holy Cross
• 38 Harvard
• 39 Colgate
• 65 Dartmouth
• 67 Brown
• 69 Cornell
• 78 Penn
• 90 Princeton
• 109 Columbia

Here's how Jeff Sagarin sees the same teams in the context of all of Division I:

• 100 Yale
• 108 New Hampshire
• 131 Holy Cross
• 154 Harvard
• 159 Colgate
• 185 Brown
• 186 Dartmouth
• 192 Cornell
• 199 Penn
• 207 Princeton
• 223 Columbia

And finally, someone who should have known better someone wasn't dressed warmly enough for practice yesterday. You can bet I'll be bundled a little better today ;-)