Sunday, February 09, 2014

Where Do I Start?

A website called Collectable Ivy has a posting about the game program for Dartmouth's first Ivy League game at Penn on Oct. 6, 1956. From that posting:
The program announces in an article written by the longtime sports editor of The Philadelphia Bulletin, Edwin J. Pollock, that “The Ivy League, which begins its first formal season on Franklin Field today, is a group of early American educational institutions which have united for a common purpose – preservation of the life and liberty of intercollegiate football.” The author goes on to detail the “decay of principles”, abuses and other problems that college football developed since its inception. By forming the Ivy league, “they were and are leaders in a corrective movement of which the formal Ivy Football League is a manifestation.”
The Ivy League is not a grouping of colleges with a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude or a desire to dictate, dominate or rule intercollegiate football. Their intent, as this observer sees it, is merely to lead the way back…The Ivies haven’t picked up their marbles to go off to play among themselves in quietude and solitude. The members are committed to play each other member every season, but they are permitted to schedule up to two non-league opponents each year. 
Where do I start?

For what it's worth, I wrote a lengthy essay for the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia that addressed the sins of the game in its early days and how they played into the formation of the Ivy League. Check it out sometime ;-)
Thanks for sharing a link to a posting in The Motley Fool headlined, Want to Know Which Ivy League School Is the Best Investment? Go ahead. Click through the slideshow.
The Motley Fool was the good news. The Dartmouth has the news that there has been a 14 percent drop in applications at Dartmouth.

From the story:
In response to the unexpected decrease in applicants, the College will conduct a survey of non-applicants to better understand the shift, according to a College press release. 
I think I can save the college the effort. The answer is two words: bad publicity.