Thursday, March 24, 2011

'It's not a very logical approach'

Penn Current has a very good Q&A with Quaker football coach Al Bagnoli. Here's an outtake regarding the Ivy League's prohibition against going to the postseason:
Q. The Ivy League currently does not allow postseason play for football.
A. That’s always been the case. It’s not a very logical approach. It’s been that way since I’ve been in this league. I’m still trying to figure out what a very coherent, logical answer is to the question of why 33 out of 34 sports can go on [to postseason play] and one can’t. I haven’t heard a logical explanation, so that’s about as far as I can take it. We’ll keep asking the questions though and at some point maybe we’ll get some traction on it.

Q. I believe their argument is that they don’t want an extended football season to interfere with academics.
A. We miss the least amount of classes of any fall sport. That’s the first issue. And we’re only talking about one team. It would only be the Ivy League champion that would advance, the other seven schools would be on a regular schedule. And if you take a look at the basketball tournaments, or the swimming competitions, or the wrestling finals, or the lacrosse competitions, they miss so many more classes than we would ever dream of missing, and it extends through finals, through spring, through everything else, so I’m not sure that’s a coherent, logical argument.

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