---

BY BENJAMIN KABAK

In print | December 4, 2003

The face of Swarthmore athletics changed forever on Dec. 2, 2000. That day, the Board of Managers eliminated the football and wrestling teams. This contentious decision sparked years of discussion and thrust Swarthmore and its athletics program into a national spotlight.

Now, three years later, the last remaining Swarthmore football players are nearing graduation, and most students have never experienced campus life with a football team, football players or football games. The deep wounds of the cuts have healed slowly. But for many involved, these cuts were about improvement. In fact, the board’s reason for the cuts was to affirm its commitment to building a stronger athletics program.

“The only way to do that was to lower the number of athletes, and that meant cutting a team,” said Peter Collings, chair of the advisory committee for physical education and athletics.

Today, the athletics department seems to have put the cuts behind it. Coaches and administrators agree that the athletics program is enjoying a period of development and improvement.

A growing program

Athletic Director Adam Hertz arrived at Swarthmore in the wake of the football cuts. The college hired him then as assistant athletic director to bring a fresh face to the department, one that would lead a department that would soon see much growth. “I’m in my third year here,” Hertz said, “and, since I’ve been here, I’ve seen marked improvement in athletics across the board.”

Over the past few seasons, Hertz explained, he has witnessed the board living up to its commitment of strengthening the program. He cited four areas off the field where the college has grown: the renovated lobby areas in the Tarble Pavilion, the dugouts recently added to the softball and baseball fields, the new drainage system on the game fields and the state-of-the-art turf field and track. On the field, Hertz and others in athletics praised the addition of permanent coaches.

“One person is looking out for the interests of its team,” Assistant Athletic Director Karen Borbee said. “We’re here on campus all day, every day, all year.”

Adrienne Shibles, the women’s basketball coach, has seen the athletes respond well to the addition of permanent coaches. “The coaches have more energy,” she said. “The full-time people have added a lot of energy and consistency to the program. It’s provided a more positive experience for the student athletes.”

Maurice Eldridge ‘61, vice president for college and community relations, said these improvements showed the sincerity behind the board’s original pledge. “I do think that the college has been living up to its commitments — strengthening the program, hiring coaches, upgrading facilities. It’s been a big morale boost for athletes and coaches,” Eldridge said.

These improvements show the board’s commitment, but Hertz said players were a big part of the progress. “We’re seeing more landmark wins,” Hertz said, citing the men’s soccer team’s victory over 12th-ranked Johns Hopkins and the volleyball team’s defeat of Haverford. “These are symbolic victories, and they are signs that we’re improving across the board.”

At the same time, Hertz recognized the need for patience. Certain teams, especially baseball, were hit harder by the cuts than others, and while the win-loss records of these teams do not show much improvement, those in athletics see improvements in the quality of play.

“Because a significant number of baseball players were also football players, baseball was more adversely affected by the football cuts,” Hertz said. “But we’re seeing improvements now in the new team members. First off, baseball is their passion, and we’re recruiting from a stronger baseball pedigree. When you’re living on three or four spots a year, it’s going to be a while before you build a team of 20-plus players.”

While many teams are still building programs, Hertz said the level of competition had increased over the last three years. “I don’t see teams going out there without knowing they can win every game,” Hertz said. “Each time we go out on the field with all of our teams, we think we can win all of our games.”

Borbee praised the program. “It’s about looking forward,” she said. “I’m very optimistic, encouraged and energized over what we’ve been able to accomplish.”

Bridging the culture gap

With the on-field growth paying dividends, administrators and coaches recognize that their work must continue to bridge the divide between athletes and non-athletes. Yet whether this gap exists is still up in the air.

“I never thought there was as much of a divide as people projected,” Dean of the College Bob Gross ’62 said. “Athletes tend to feel this more acutely than non-athletes. They tend to view themselves as separate than other students.”

While Gross and others believe the gap is closing, coaches - and the admissions office - are focused on eliminating it. “I don’t think it’s perfect by any stretch, but I think it’s better,” Shibles said. “People are really working hard to open up lines of communication to make sure athletics is included in the larger Swarthmore community.”

“Our primary responsibilities are to create a more understanding relationship with admissions, to bridge the culture gap between athletics and mainstream Swat life,” Hertz said.

Jim Bock ’90, dean of admissions, said his office worked closely with athletics to enroll athletes well suited to Swarthmore. “We take a holistic approach in our review of applicants regardless of whether sports is involved,” Bock said. “In addition to strength of curriculum and other objective factors, we look for signs of intellectual passion, motivation, leadership and commitment.”

Hertz had no complaints about admissions. “Where some of our competitors may look at students’ academic records, we look at what they’ve done to separate themselves from the pack. I don’t think we can complain about what’s going on with admissions,” he said.

Borbee and Hertz recognized that the drive to bridge the gap comes from small improvements. They cited the new field as one way in which athletics has minimized conflicts with academics. Yet, in the end, coaches feel non-athletes should be more accepting of student-athletes. “Athletes at Swarthmore are students first and foremost. It’s not like they’re different and have to be accepted,” Borbee said.

Recruiting: a manic rat race

With the current development, progress and increased understanding, the future of athletics at Swarthmore is far from stable. “I have a lot of questions as to how we can maintain competitive programs in the Centennial Conference when other teams are bringing in more and more talent and have twice the depth that we have. It’s getting harder and harder, and I don’t know what the future is,” Shibles said.

Administrators and coaches echoed her sentiments. Almost everyone pointed to one area, and Eldridge summarized it neatly: “Recruiting and the need to recruit has become very poisonous.”

The drive to recruit at the Division III level has turned into a manic rat race, and a recent symposium on athletics in higher education served to drive this point home. “What I learned at the symposium was the incredible heavy burden on coaches,” Gross said. “The number of athletes who can compete at Swarthmore athletically and academically is fairly small, and everyone is after them. The world we’re competing in is creating some very difficult conditions.”

“Recruiting is a challenge at all schools,” Borbee said. “We’re not looking for really smart athletes. We’re looking for scholars who play sports, and they’re tough to find. Students who are a fit for Swarthmore and can help our program are needles in a haystack, and everyone wants them.”

In reality, administrators do not know the future of athletics at a college Swarthmore’s size. “The coaches have an extremely difficult job, especially at a Division III school in our conference with no athletic scholarships. We definitely have our work cut out for us for the next three to five years and beyond,” Bock said.

Closer to home, the board is assessing the present and future of athletics. The advisory committee for physical education and athletics is just a few weeks away from releasing its first assessment on Swarthmore sports. “We’ve tried to say, ’Let’s go look at it and tell it how it is,’ " committee chair Collings said. "What comes out is not seen as anyone’s agenda.”

When the committee - composed of coaches, faculty members and students - releases its report in the spring, Collings said the report should simply be viewed as an assessment of the progress made in the year following the cuts. “I think the report will give an assessment plan that is fairly comprehensive. It’s a public way of seeing if we’re making any progress,” he said.

While Collings noted that not everyone’s win-loss record has improved and that improvement has come in the quality of competition that Swarthmore’s teams offer, Hertz is looking forward to the day when athletics is no longer under such close scrutiny at Swarthmore. “I’d like to see the success becoming a non-issue,” he said. “That will mean that we have seamlessly blended athletics with the goal of Swarthmore. That means there is no culture gap. People won’t be looking at win-loss records, bewildered by them. It means we will have addressed the concerns of our alumni base successfully.”

---

« RETURN TO NEWS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »