Chris Lincoln, whose 2004 book Playing the Game pulled the covers back on the Ivy League athletic recruiting process, is back for another Question and Answer session.
This Q&A came about as a result of the tidal wave of financial aid reform around the Ivy League and the possibilities those initiatives bring to the athletic arena. When I asked Chris if he had considered writing a supplemental chapter to his book he generously offered to share his thoughts here. They are sure to inform, arouse and perhaps anger some people, with the first of those clearly most important.
If you agree or disagree with what Chris has to say, feel free to add your comments at the bottom of this page, bearing in mind that as the owner of this blog I reserve the right to publish or not publish comments as I see fit. As onetime Dartmouth student A.J. Liebling once famously said, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." If you email me I will share your thoughts with Chris.
If you haven't already read Playing the Game, know that it remains relevant and enlightening, a widely praised piece of reporting and writing that highlights many of the issues that still plague recruiting in the Ivy League today. It is available at Amazon.com, or directly from the website of the publisher, Nomad Press, or by calling Nomad at 802-649-1995.
Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know I spent hours on several occasions asking and answering questions with Chris Lincoln while he was researching Playing the Game.
A Q&A With Chris Lincoln, March 10, 2008
Q: While Dartmouth and Brown appear to be reworking their financial policy mostly to improve aid at the lower end of the earning spectrum, Harvard in particular seems to be targeting the real middle class. Is that a more significant move than the others are making and what does it mean?
CL: Yes, it is a more significant move, and Harvard is not alone. Yale is also targeting the middle class with their new aid policies, and Princeton has done so since they eliminated all student loans in 2001. They can all afford to be more generous than the five other Ivies with their aid awards. Harvard has the largest endowment of any school in the country, estimated to be $35 billion last November by the New York Times. I believe this is five times the size of Dartmouth's endowment.
I think it’s very exciting what Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn, Stanford, and top colleges including Williams and Amherst are doing with these new aid policies. Princeton was the first to eliminate loans and increase aid, and now these other schools are following that lead. You have to applaud the opportunity these changes offer talented students from low, modest, and middle-income families.
Before we look at the ramifications of these new aid policies on athletic recruiting, however, let’s review some vital statistics. According to U.S. Census data, the median family income in our country is now $46,326; a full 70 percent of American families earn less than $70,000; and nearly 90 percent earn less than $150,000.
Given these figures, it’s quite remarkable what Harvard, Yale and Princeton are doing. Harvard first made tuition free for families earning less than $60,000. Now, in their latest move, tuition for families earning between between $60,000 and $120,000 is calculated somewhere between zero and 10 percent of their income, while tuition for families earning between $120,000 and $180,000 will be 10 percent of their income.
Families of Yale students with annual incomes lower than $120,000 will pay less than half of the university’s tuition, while families with annual incomes that fall between $120,000 and $200,000 will see their tuitions cut by a third or more. Previously, a family with an income of $90,000 and assets of $150,000 would have paid $12,550 annually for tuition; now that family will pay $2,950
Meanwhile, Dartmouth’s new financial aid initiative will provide free tuition for all students from families with annual incomes less than $75,000 and eliminate all loans with grants for every student receiving aid. Brown’s new financial aid policy eliminates loans for students whose family incomes are less than $100,000, reduces loans for all students who receive financial aid, and no longer requires a parental contribution from most families with incomes of up to $60,000.
Harvard, Yale and Princeton’s aid policies extend farther than Dartmouth’s and Brown’s (and the other three Ivies), which means that in terms of athletic recruiting, they are able to offer better aid to a wider spectrum of kids than the other Ivy schools.
A real concern being voiced around the Ivy League right now is that the divide between HYP and therest is only going to grow. Is that a legitimate concern?
Yes, I think it is a legitimate concern. HYP have always enjoyed greater prestige than the other schools in the Ivy League, and they have also been providing better financial aid packages for the past several years, thanks to their larger endowments and the relative size of their student bodies.
Now, their financial aid policies will allow them to offer their sweeter aid packages to an even larger percentage of recruited athletes, including those whose families earn up to $180,000 a year (at Harvard) and $200,000 (at Yale). In terms of athletic recruiting, this is a phenomenal advantage—and not just within the Ivy League, but potentially outside the League as well.
For instance, soccer scholarships in Division I are capped at 9.9. But at Harvard, it’s now possible that they could have 11, 15, even (in theory) 22 players receiving the equivalent of a full ride. I doubt it will ever be the equivalent of 22 players on a full ride, but it could easily be a majority of players getting large, need-based aid packages. The point is that Harvard is now going to be able to provide any kid whose family makes less than $180,000 a year with a phenomenal aid package—and we know from the US Census figures that includes over 90 percent of the US population.
To my knowledge, the only other school in Division I that is now offering the equivalent in terms of financial aid is Stanford. And Stanford also offers athletic scholarships. So in theory, a Stanford coach can say to a kid who demonstrates a high-need for aid: “Apply and you’ll get a full ride,” without having to use up an athletic scholarship on that kid. The coach can then save that athletic scholarship for a recruit from a wealthy family.
The Ivies pride themselves on how the AI supposedly assures a level playing field. The current reforms aside, it seems the financial aid piece has been anything but level in recent years with packages varying dramatically from school to school. Is that a fair assessment?
Yes, that’s fair. Coaches and athletic directors around the Ivy League were candid with me about the advantage that Princeton enjoyed in its athletic recruiting, thanks to its excellent aid packages. There’s a good reason that the longest chapter in my book addresses financial aid. It’s been a huge issue for a number of years. After my book was published, Harvard and Yale beefed up their aid packages, and some people argue that their athletic programs have benefited as a result. These recent aid policies take this potential advantage to an entirely new level.
The Ivy League has skirted this issue of an unfair advantage for schools that can offer more aid by saying that other Ivy schools have the opportunity to match that aid. But in athletic recruiting, it’s easy to avoid having to do this—mainly by not putting the offer on paper, so it can be shown to, or reviewed by, another school. But today, even if a coach at Cornell or Penn were able to get their hands on a financial aid offer a recruit had received from Harvard or Yale, there’s very little chance of their financial aid office being able to match that offer.
Unfortunately, money has become an even bigger piece of the recruiting puzzle, as tuitions continue to rise and the annual cost of attending an Ivy institution nears $50,000. But it’s always been an issue, ever since the League was sued by the US Justice Department for collusion and forced to end their policy of offering equal aid package to all students who were accepted to more than one Ivy school. Ever since, packages haven’t been equal—but now there’s an even greater gap between what HYP can offer and what other schools can offer.
If you were a Brown or Dartmouth coach in particular, would you now concentrate on recruiting kids eligible for 100 percent aid?
I think that smart Ivy coaches have kept their eyes out for kids eligible for 100 percent aid for some time. It’s always been a way for them to compete for prospects with scholarship schools, and a way for them to compete within the league. Glenn Miller turned around the Brown basketball program earlier this decade by doing exactly that. He targeted kids from low-income families who were eligible for need-based, full-rides. If I were a coach today at Brown or Dartmouth, I would certainly be concentrating on recruiting kids whose families earn less than $75,000 a year. But that’s not going to give me any advantage over HYP. It’s only to going to help me against Penn, Columbia, and Cornell.
The other thing coaches and administrators acknowledged to me was that HYP have an elite status within the Ivy League. They are perceived as the top three schools, especially by parents. So if a kid is being recruited by one, or all, of them, it’s tough for the other schools in the league to win that recruiting battle. Throw the financial aid advantage on top of that, and it’s nearly impossible.
Of course, there are programs at every Ivy school that have their tradition and prestige, and they can win the battle for kids over HYP. But it’s going to get much harder to maintain that tradition and dominance as tuition continues to rise and the richer schools can dole out juicier aid packages. Also, nothing stays static. Coaches come and go, athletic directors move on, new blood comes in, and programs change—for better and worse. If you’re a coach at Harvard right now, with more aid to give, how can you lose? You have the best known brand in higher education, plus you have tremendous financial aid packages. If you can’t win, it’s time to find another career.
Some are wondering if the Ivies will now start making recruiting inroads on Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Rice, etc. Do you see that happening to any great extent? How about in sports like football and basketball, where the Ivies can't always match fancier facilities, bigger crowds and greater exposure?
This is an interesting question with some simple answers and more complex possibilities.
First the simple answers. I don’t believe the Ivies will ever compete for the same level of football players, across the board, as the schools you’ve listed. They may compete for a few kids here and there, as they have done over the years with some of the schools you’ve listed, but the Ivies compete in FCS (D-IAA) football, which is a level below these other programs, and they play the majority of their schedule within the Ivy League. Will kids being recruited by Northwestern want to compete for an Ivy League crown instead of a Big 10 title? I doubt it. Further, Ivy rules do not allow for any post-season play in the FCS/D-IAA football tournament, or in bowl games. So, I don’t see a lot of top prospects choosing a football career at Princeton over one at, say, Stanford. There will always be exceptions, of course, but I think they will remain rare.
Finally, and most limiting of all, Ivy football coaches have to build their rosters within the bounds of the Academic Index, while coaches in the ACC, Pac 10, Big 10, Big East, SEC and other conferences have no such barrier—just NCAA minimum academic requirements.
I think the same arguments will probably hold true for basketball as well, although here the barriers are not as great. First, post-season play is allowed in Ivy basketball, with the League champion getting an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Second, there’s a good deal of non-league play, so the competition has the potential to be as good as it gets. (In recent years, the Penn and Princeton men have played Top 20 teams, and so have the Harvard and Dartmouth women.) Third, the AI is not as limiting in basketball, since the rosters are much smaller and three great players can have a huge impact on a program. (Remember, football is regulated on its own in the Ivy League—within stratified A.I. bands— while all other Ivy sports, including men’s basketball and ice hockey, are now contained within one large cohort, which must have an average A.I. that is within one standard deviation of the mean of the school’s overall student body.
This means that a school can commit to helping one or two particular programs for a few years, allowing the coach to put together a team that, of itself, will have an A.I. average well below one standard deviation of the mean A.I. of the student body as a whole.
Harvard athletic director Bob Scalise recently admitted to The New York Times that this is currently the case for the Harvard men’s basketball program under coach Tommy Amaker. In effect, Harvard has said to Amaker, “Go ahead and recruit a number of players near bottom of the A.I. pool.” Other athletes, playing other sports at Harvard, will lift the overall cohort so it meets the league standard. This loosening of the A.I. reins can have a very big impact in a sport like basketball.) But, having said all this, I doubt a recruit would choose Princeton over Duke, as Bill Bradley did back in 1961.
In some other sports, I think the wealthy Ivy schools with bigger aid packages will find that they can, indeed, make inroads in their recruiting against Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Rice, and other top academic schools that offer athletic scholarships. But these Ivy programs will have to be competitive, nationally ranked, with a strong out-of-league schedule, and the ability to offer good financial aid packages.
The dirty little secret your book exposed is that Ivy League recruiting is really quite cutthroat. Is there a chance this will make it even more so?
From my perspective, the deep, underlying flaws in the Ivy recruiting system will not be affected by the new aid policies. There’s still no formal signing date, so coaches can continue to poach kids who have made verbal commitments to other Ivy coaches (and, in turn, to admission offices, who are holding a spot for them), right up until April. (Harvard has been notorious for this.) Kids can still tell a coach they are coming, secure a Likely Letter, and continue to look at other schools. The manipulation of the A.I. remains an issue (as I pointed out above, citing the example of Harvard basketball).
It’s classic Ivy League behavior. Cloak your selves in sanctity, talk about your vaunted “principles”, while in truth your system fosters cheating, lying, manipulation—all sorts of ugly behavior. The hypocrisy is alarming. Ivy presidents are terribly naïve if they think the current athletic recruiting system is working well. And now they face the reality that money is ruling their athletic conference. That kids are deciding where to go to school based on juicier aid packages, and worse, that schools with less money for aid are likely to find that their ability to compete is being compromised.
For recruits at the low end of the income spectrum, the new aid policies may actually level the playing field between a majority of Ivy schools—because packages will now look pretty similar at Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Penn, Yale, and Princeton for kids from families earning $75,000 a year or less. (Which is 70 percent of all families in the country…though obviously this doesn’t translate directly to 70 percent of all Ivy recruits or even applicants.) For this category of recruit, the Ivies are now closer to their original policy of making aid awards from different schools equal—so students are able to choose a school based on factors other than money.
Whether it's a love-hate thing is debatable, but The Patriot League and Ivy League definitely have a relationship. Will this give the Ivies the clear upper hand and if so, would you anticipate the Patriots would finally add football scholarships?
Adding football scholarships is expensive. At $45,000 a year per student-athlete, that’s $1.8 million a year for 40 players, $2.7 million a year for 60 players. How will Lehigh alumni feel about that? What about talented engineering students who need financial aid? Would spending all that money on football make any Patriot League school a better educational institution? Do you want 40-60 students on campus enjoying a different status than everyone else?
There isn’t a single Ivy League board of trustees enacting these new aid policies to make their sports teams more competitive. The motivation at Princeton, where this trend began back in 2001, was to help its students graduate without the burden of loan debt, so they could have a wider variety of career options, including public service and teaching, rather than feeling forced to seek high-paying jobs in order to pay off their loans. In the case of these other schools, I have read that their motivation is less altruistic and based more on a fear of Congress forcing them—and other wealthy non-profits—to spend a percentage of their endowment or risk losing government funding. “Spread the wealth” appears to have been the message. The bottom line is the same for students: schools can now attract a broader group of talented students to their campuses, from a wider economic spectrum, and relieve more of their graduates of loan debt.
You know, in light this financial aid issue, and looking at the current Harvard basketball recruiting controversy and the realities of competing Division I athletics today, you have to wonder why the Ivy League remains a Division I athletic conference. To what end? How is this improving your educational mission?
And, if the Ivy League wants to remain a Division I athletic conference, then everyone who’s not working at Harvard, Princeton and Yale needs to stop whining about their lack of money to spend on aid for athletic recruits—because the bottom line is that your academic institutions are enjoying the benefits of being associated with the top academic brands in the country. Your school’s reputation is being lifted by being in the Ivy League. Where would you be without Harvard, Princeton, and Yale?
As one Ivy administrator said to me: “If Harvard has ever taken a position that is in the interest of the Ivy League as a whole that isn't solidly in Harvard's interest, I am unaware of it.” The fact is, the biggest brand of all rules the Ivy League, and everyone else can go eat worms.
Executive Director of the Ivy League Jeff Orleans is retiring at the end of next year. Can you give us your take on Jeff's mark on the Ivy League? If you were running the search for his replacement, what kind of person would you be looking for?
Jeff Orleans has been the Ivy League’s one and only Executive Director. He’s had the job since 1984. He’s a Yale and a Yale Law School graduate, so he’s obviously a bright guy. Yes, some controversy has surrounded him and his office over the years, but he loves Ivy sports and he loves Ivy athletes. He believes in the Ivy principles. And unlike most of the Ivy presidents, he also understands the realities of being a Division I athletic conference and the complexities and the pressures this brings to bear on Ivy athletic recruiting.
But in many ways, he’s been in a no-win situation. While he may favor making certain reforms, getting the Ivy presidents to enact them is extremely difficult. Now, this financial aid issue cuts to the very core of the Ivy League principles, and it will be very interesting to see how the Ivy presidents reconcile it, if at all. They are masters of delusion, after all, with an uncanny ability to ignore their ugly athletic problems to focus on other, “bigger” issues.
In terms of a legacy, Jeff has been an able administrator, and he’s done a good job of promoting the Ivy League as a place where bright kids are also sometimes terrific athletes. He’s also kept the lid on some stories and NCAA investigations that would have embarrassed the Ivy League. (He tried to keep a lid on my book, too, sending an email to every Ivy athletic director that ordered them to refrain from making any comment on it, which I took as a compliment).
But I think what’s most telling, regarding any legacy, was his admission to me that the Ivy League is not living up to its vaunted principles. “I think the (NCAA) Letter of Intent is more of an Ivy principle than the (Ivy League) Likely Letter,” he admitted to me, “even if you are going to talk about integrity and honesty and morality. Because it’s inviting problems the way it’s set up now.”
Well, if you know it’s inviting problems, then why don’t you do something? And Jeff would answer, rightly so, “Ask the Ivy presidents.”
Given all this, I guess you’d want another lawyer to replace him. (laugh) I cannot imagine anyone taking over the job who is not an Ivy League graduate or currently working as an Ivy administrator or a committed Ivy zealot. The Presidents will want someone who has drunk their Kool-aid and shares their delusional state of mind, when what they need is someone to set them straight.
Dartmouth president Jim Wright is retiring at the end of next year. What will be his athletic legacy and what concerns can you see arising out of a new president in Hanover?
Jim Wright was the ideal antidote to his predecessor, James Freedman, on the athletic front. He genuinely likes athletics, admires the students who compete at Dartmouth and in the Ivy League, regularly attends sporting events, and has an impressive collection of autographed baseballs in his office. One key aspect of his legacy will be the way he succeeded in getting admissions officers and the athletic department to better communicate with each other at a time when both sides were pointing fingers at the other, casting blame.
This may surprise those who love Dartmouth football, because another key part of his athletic legacy will be the “Furstenberg letter”, and his staunch support of his admission dean following its revelations. That he chose to stick by Karl Furstenberg exposed a few things about Wright and about Dartmouth in the 21st century: first, that Dartmouth alumni, including its Board of Trustees, care much less about their standing in football than they do about their standing as an academic institution; second, that an anti-athlete bias is acceptable at Dartmouth, when biases against students of color, against women, or against homosexuals is condemned, and, if revealed in a letter on Dartmouth letterhead, would surely result in the loss of a job; and third, that Jim Wright believed Karl Furstenberg could separate his own personal bias from his professional actions. Others can add to this list, I’m sure. But the point is, at an Ivy League school, hypocrisy and double standards abound.
Overall, Dartmouth athletics did not change much—for better or for worse—under Wright’s tenure. The football program’s demise was sealed by James Freedman, with his emphasis on higher academic credentials for incoming freshman, which resulted in a higher A.I. for the football team. Recently, there have been improvements to some athletic facilities, but in many respects these are simply maintaining the athletic status quo—playing catch up with other schools to provide what is expected in this day and age.
In terms of the financial aid issue we’ve been discussing, Jim Wright has had his head in the sand for several years, having told me in 2003: “I sure don’t want us to get into a spot where we’re competing for athletes based on how large a financial aid package is. That, it seems to me, is not consistent with Ivy League principles. I think a lot of schools worry about this a lot.”
Well, Jim Wright and his fellow Ivy presidents should start worrying a lot more, because the stakes have just risen dramatically on an Ivy principle that’s been compromised for years. Ironically, Dartmouth’s new financial aid initiative will simply contribute to the problem, not solve it. For decades, the Ivy League has prided itself on standing separate and alone from the rest of Division I, on its own higher moral ground, as the only conference that enforces higher academic standards and does not award athletic scholarships. In effect, the League has said, “We don’t care what the rest of D-I does, we’re doing it our way, a better way, and we’ll always be able to compete evenly with each other as a result.”
Well, not any more. Now money is the name of the game. The League cannot fall back on even competition because wealthier schools now enjoy a huge advantage. Could this ever have been imagined over 50 years ago, when the Ivy charter was created and the League was formed? Not without a crystal football. So now the question is, how will the Ivy presidents reconcile this new reality—if at all?
In the past, they’ve taken halting, minor steps when significant reforms are required. Will this be any different? In key respects, the Ivy presidents are delusional when it comes to athletics—nostalgic for 1958, not living in 2008.
It would not surprise me if the new Dartmouth president is a woman. Will she be a kindred spirit to Jim Wright or to James Freedman? Either way, Dartmouth sports have seen their best days, I’m afraid, and everyone should get comfortable with the notion that Jim Wright shared with me: namely, that success in sports is not judged by winning Ivy titles but by being competitive and learning the lessons that are imparted through athletics.
Is this a new Ivy principle—embracing average performance, even mediocrity, rather than excellence?
© Big Green Alert Blog
Note: Chris Lincoln's 2006 Q&A with the Green Alert blog is available here.
