Slate: "Is Wesleyan Compromising ... to build an athletics cash cow?"

Started by Ron Boerger, December 21, 2017, 11:19:16 AM

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WUPHF

Quote from: Gregory Sager on September 25, 2018, 06:49:32 PM
The thing is, vis-a-vis the midweek interruption, the downstate schools never play the Wisconsin schools on a Wednesday. So IWU is never going to have anything longer than a three-hour road trip on a Wednesday.

To be clear, I only said the UAA schools are missing days of classes.  I also said that lack of a midweek interruption moderated the overall disruption of travel to other schools by a bit.  Otherwise, the CCIW is geographically well situated.

By the by, if you ever read an interview or blog from a UAA player, they almost universally cite the travel weekends as one of their favorite parts about playing in the league along with traveling alongside and cheering for their male or female counterparts.

Gregory Sager

Quote from: PaulNewman on September 25, 2018, 07:11:14 PM
Per Wikipedia....

The Little Ivies (singularly Little Ivy) are a group of small, highly academically competitive private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States.[nb 1]

The term Little Ivy derives from these schools' small student bodies, standards of academic excellence, associated historic social prestige, and highly selective admissions comparable to the Ivy League. According to Bloomberg, the Little Ivies are also known for their large financial endowments, both absolutely and relative to their size.[11] The term is generally associated with the colleges of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and select schools from the Liberty League, Patriot League and the Centennial Conference.

Among the Little Ivies are the Little Three, a term used by Amherst College, Wesleyan University and Williams College to describe themselves akin to the Big Three of the Northeast's Ivy League: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.[12] The three colleges joined Bowdoin College to found the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) in 1971 along with Bates College, Colby College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Trinity College and Union College.[13] Union withdrew in 1977 and was replaced by Connecticut College in 1982.[14]

Dude, I've already said that I've spoken my piece. How long are you going to keep at this?
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Gregory Sager

Quote from: WUPHF on September 25, 2018, 08:36:42 PM
Quote from: Gregory Sager on September 25, 2018, 06:49:32 PM
The thing is, vis-a-vis the midweek interruption, the downstate schools never play the Wisconsin schools on a Wednesday. So IWU is never going to have anything longer than a three-hour road trip on a Wednesday.

To be clear, I only said the UAA schools are missing days of classes.  I also said that lack of a midweek interruption moderated the overall disruption of travel to other schools by a bit.  Otherwise, the CCIW is geographically well situated.

By the by, if you ever read an interview or blog from a UAA player, they almost universally cite the travel weekends as one of their favorite parts about playing in the league along with traveling alongside and cheering for their male or female counterparts.

Yeah, I can remember reading Sean Wallis's (I think) blog on d3hoops.com where he said something to that effect. It makes sense to me. Seeing different major cities as a part of sports season strikes me as a big attraction, in the same vein as a snowbird trip for a winter sport. (Snowbird trips are really more of a necessity than a selling point for outdoor spring sports such as baseball and softball for northern-based schools.)
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

smedindy

Quote from: Gregory Sager on September 25, 2018, 10:55:29 PM
Quote from: PaulNewman on September 25, 2018, 07:11:14 PM
Per Wikipedia....

The Little Ivies (singularly Little Ivy) are a group of small, highly academically competitive private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States.[nb 1]

The term Little Ivy derives from these schools' small student bodies, standards of academic excellence, associated historic social prestige, and highly selective admissions comparable to the Ivy League. According to Bloomberg, the Little Ivies are also known for their large financial endowments, both absolutely and relative to their size.[11] The term is generally associated with the colleges of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and select schools from the Liberty League, Patriot League and the Centennial Conference.

Among the Little Ivies are the Little Three, a term used by Amherst College, Wesleyan University and Williams College to describe themselves akin to the Big Three of the Northeast's Ivy League: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.[12] The three colleges joined Bowdoin College to found the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) in 1971 along with Bates College, Colby College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Trinity College and Union College.[13] Union withdrew in 1977 and was replaced by Connecticut College in 1982.[14]

Dude, I've already said that I've spoken my piece. How long are you going to keep at this?


Gregory Sager

I've gotten kinda nostalgic for the gif version, which used to be a staple of the MIAA men's basketball board:



One MIAA poster even used it as his icon, with the horse covered in painted-in blood.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

sunny

Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on September 25, 2018, 01:30:34 PM
--- Changing what I wrote for those who read my first version ---

I think if they could join the Centennial (they are an associate member in wrestling) they would be interested, but I don't feel the Centennial has any interest in an outlier travel wise.

This came up years ago and the Centennial passed for the travel reason you mention. While there has been plenty of presidential and administrative turnover since then, I doubt the outcome would be any different now. The travel is a concern of all the Centennial schools, but specifically, I suspect there is a voting block of schools that would never vote in favor of it on those grounds no matter what.

ADL70

d-mac
Your suggestion that there is a school in a major metropolitan area "angling" to get into the UAA has me scratching my head. Are they trying to join AAU as well? That seems to be a requirement for UAA. At one point there were suggestions that Tulane might drop to D3, but their new football stadium puts the kibosh on that. UT-Dallas is the only current d3 school that comes to mind, but would UAA accept a state school? RPI?

I'm not sure why UAA would want to expand. Only goal I can see is AQ for baseball, but at-large has worked fairly well for the only serious contenders; CWRU, Emory, and WashU. Or as you suggest a presence in another major metropolitan area.

If you don't mind PM me who's angling and I'll keep it under my hat.

You mentioned that the number of UAA football schools was four, but the website current lists only the three who are playing each other: CMU, CWRU, and Rochester.
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PaulNewman

Greg, with all due respect, and at the risk of the same poster describing my posts as vitriolic (when seriously they mostly do not reach your tone and are usually less authoritative/dismissive than yours)......is exasperation (and as you have said multiple times banging your head against a brick wall) exclusive to your utilization?

I did not address you or quote you in that post.  Others may find the original thread topic (not started by me), as well as the topic I picked up on from our W&L friend, and perhaps related topics, of interest.  Should I simply follow your cue on when you have ended a discussion with your final point that you believe trumps all other points?  Are you the arbiter of when you have settled a matter and when "enough is enough"? You clearly are here a lot and really enjoy posting and responding and countering (nothing special about me with you in that regard other than me directly addressing it).  Just ignore my posts.

FYI, I looked back at the sequence and I very specifically said NESCAC and Ivies with respect to the cultural and Northeast/New England point of view.  You didn't seem to contest that.  I agreed with you about grad schools, as, believe it or not, I did and do know quite a bit about the relative size, undergrad vs grad, and programmatic differences between all of the schools being referenced.  We actually agreed, and at least indirectly conceded that we did.  You then insisted on what was of primary import versus secondary import.  In what context?  That matters, and given that I was referring to the cultural, New England, and to some extent athletic aspects, that was the context that I underscored.  So in that context it WAS primary.  The tedious stuff afterwards about schools with grad schools and those without and who is more likely to major in what based on undergrad choice only obfuscated the original points made by the W&L guy as well as myself.

Now, getting back to the original thread topic about facilities and in particular the NESCAC, where are these schools with respect to each other?  I recall being blown away by Middlebury's facilities (especially the hockey arena) 10-12 years ago, but have other schools caught up and surpassed that?  Is Bates planning any kind of counter to the massive investments that Colby has been making over the last 5-10 years?  How do the NESCACs rank top to bottom in terms of athletic facilities?

PaulNewman

I was wondering also....and also in the same state but different school.  Trinity (TX) [San Antonio]?  Or perhaps a school in Portland or Seattle areas?

Gregory Sager

"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Ron Boerger

Quote from: PaulNewman on September 26, 2018, 10:22:59 AM
I was wondering also....and also in the same state but different school.  Trinity (TX) [San Antonio]?  Or perhaps a school in Portland or Seattle areas?

Trinity(TX) doesn't have the research chops, financial resources, and other prerequisites to even think about UAA membership - not to mention the extreme travel that would be required. 

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Quote from: ADL70 on September 26, 2018, 10:04:56 AM
d-mac
Your suggestion that there is a school in a major metropolitan area "angling" to get into the UAA has me scratching my head. Are they trying to join AAU as well? That seems to be a requirement for UAA. At one point there were suggestions that Tulane might drop to D3, but their new football stadium puts the kibosh on that. UT-Dallas is the only current d3 school that comes to mind, but would UAA accept a state school? RPI?

I'm not sure why UAA would want to expand. Only goal I can see is AQ for baseball, but at-large has worked fairly well for the only serious contenders; CWRU, Emory, and WashU. Or as you suggest a presence in another major metropolitan area.

If you don't mind PM me who's angling and I'll keep it under my hat.

You mentioned that the number of UAA football schools was four, but the website current lists only the three who are playing each other: CMU, CWRU, and Rochester.

There are a lot of things that need to take place for this particular school to even be considered by the UAA. They may not be brought in anyway. I do not know if they will apply or not for the AAU.

And I'm not stating the name right now.

And per football, three are listed (thought it was four; there are technically five if I remember correctly) ... but they don't play as true conference foes technically. The three do play for something, but I admittedly can't remember what. However, the three have access to an AQ through their football conferences.
Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

WUPHF


Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

Pat Coleman

I would have loved for my alma mater to join the UAA ... but, amazingly, they left the AAU in the past decade or so.  :o
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