A North Dakota media outlet takes the Ivy League to task for its ban on postseason play in a story under the headline, NDSU's high GPA an example to Ivys that football and school do mix. (LINK)
The column is spun out of a North Dakota State press release that the piece says "should be sent to Boston, Providence, R.I., New York City, Philadelphia, Ithaca, N.Y., Hanover, N.H., Princeton, N.J. and New Haven, Conn. Those are the cities or towns of Ivy League schools."
From the story:
The Ivy has been hammered and beaten down over the years because of its policy of not allowing its schools to compete in the FCS playoffs. The doctrine is a mandate by the school presidents who claim that postseason football would hinder the academic performance of their student-athletes.
It’s an oxymoron in the first place because if the Ivy League truly attracts the best and brightest students out there, balancing time and athletics shouldn’t be that big of an issue. The players apparently have no problem handling it from August through November. What’s one school adding a couple, three weeks to the season to compete in the playoffs?
Or if somebody gets good enough making it all the way through to the beginning of January when school isn’t in session anyway? The Ivy allows its basketball teams to participate in the NCAA tournament. The league in 2017 caved in to a four-team postseason conference basketball tournament that is televised on ESPN.
Why is football different?
There's a lot more in the column that actually applauds the competitive nature of Ivy League football. It's well worth reading HERE.
Green Alert Take: Ouch.
Green Alert Take II: If the writer really wanted to make the point he should have used ice hockey and not basketball as his example of a sport the Ivies let play in the postseason. If my quick calculation is correct, the Ivy League's six ECAC teams played a total of 25 playoff games last spring. Football last fall played . . . wait for it . . . zero.
Green Alert Take III: Now that the Ivy lacrosse tournament has become a staple and the league has almost joined the rest of the free world with a (limited) basketball tournament, it's time to let football do what every other Ivy League sport is allowed to do and engage in postseason play. If more outlets across the country began pointing out the discrimination against one group of student-athletes and the implied message that they are less capable of handling the academic rigors than their classmates, the Ivy League would have little choice but to let everyone go on or let no one go one. I have a suspicion which way the league would be forced to go ;-)
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The (Massachusetts) Everett Independent has a lengthy story (LINK) about groundbreaking Dartmouth football standout Matthew Bullock, a 1904 graduate who is thought to have been the first black coach of a predominantly white college, today's University of Massachusetts.
From the story:
Bullock and the Dartmouth team were scheduled to play Princeton in New Jersey and to stay at the Princeton Inn on campus. The Inn, however, would not provide accommodations for Bullock because he was black, so the team, unwilling to be separated from their teammate, stayed in New York City and made the 50-mile trip to Princeton on gameday.
Green Alert Take: Bullock went on to have a long and distinguished career as a lawyer and academic with a degree from Harvard Law. Although I've known his story for a long time it never occurred to me until this morning that Dartmouth football really should have a Matthew Bullock Award. If I'm counting right, there are currently 17 Dartmouth team awards presented each year but none in Bullock's name. I will leave it to others to come up with a description of what the award might recognize and how it might be funded, but it sure seems like a no-brainer to me.
