Dollars And Sense

The Cornell Sun has part two of its three-part look at what financial aid reform could mean to Ivy League athletics: Financial Aid Threatens Ivy Competition. There are all kinds of excerpts that could be posted. Here's one:

... (N)ot only are the “Big Three” now able to attract athletes from other Ivies, they may be able to attract top scholarship athletes from schools like Stanford and Duke.

“What Harvard is doing now, in many cases, they’re in fact giving a full athletic scholarship. (They’re offering this) to every student, but including student-athletes,” (Penn athletic director Steve) Bilsky said. “Harvard’s package, and Yale and Princeton’s packages are now getting so advanced that the schools are not going to be able to tell coaches in advance ‘we’ll match any package that anybody gives in the league.’”

Bilsky makes a point that several of us have been talking about in recent weeks. Just because the awards aren't labeled "athletic scholarships," and just because they are offered to all qualifying students, doesn't mean that they are any different from athletic scholarships to the recipients. In fact, they are better because if you are unhappy you can quit the team and not lose your aid.

Another excerpt from the story had me snickering. It says:

By providing its own broader and more generous standard of “financial need,” Cornell coaches, (athletic director Andy ) Noel and Bilsky agree the “Big Three” are establishing an athletic superiority in violation the Ivy Statement of Principles that mandate competitive balance.

Principle No. 4 states that each school “ought not merely to tolerate, but to value a balance of competitive success within the Group.”

In general, the Ivy League does value competitive balance. In practice? Yeah, sure. I can hear Tim Murphy down at Harvard: "I think we've won too many championships football championships lately. Let's let Columbia win one."

Riddle me this: How come the Ivy League hasn't done anything (add a tournament or switch up travel partners) to add a little more competitive balance in men's basketball, where Princeton and Penn have gone to the NCAA Tournament for the past 20 years and have made 43 of the last 47 trips to the big dance? Sure, Cornell is probably going to go on this year, but if anyone thinks Penn and Princeton aren't going to rise back to the top in the next couple of years I've got a bridge over the Connecticut I'd like to sell them.

The Columbia Spectator recaps published information about 15 football recruits headed to New York City next fall.

Harvard has two unusual basketball transfers this year. The Crimson writes about a woman basketball player who began her career at Princeton. The Daily Pennsylvanian, meanwhile, writes about the 6-11 German-born Turkish national who was recruited to Indiana, had little success there, returned home and declared for the NBA draft before ending up at Marshalltown Community College in Iowa. That, eventually, brought him to Harvard.

Speaking of Harvard, Jamie Clark is the Crimson's new soccer coach. If the name is familiar, he is the son of former Dartmouth soccer coach Bobby Clark. Jamie grew up in Hanover and eventually played for his father at Stanford. Bobby Clark, by the way, is now the head coach at Notre Dame. I'm biased, because he's a friend, but there are few people who know Bobby Clark who would debate that he was one of the best coaches, if not the best, Dartmouth has had in the last 25 years or more and I'd readily agree with them. Bobby Clark has remained a close friend of the Dartmouth soccer program and coach Jeff Cook, one of his proteges. I'm sure Bobby is going to be conflicted when Dartmouth and Harvard play.