If you've been wondering about the state of college athletics, and maybe marveling at Harvard's recent top-25 basketball rating, or last year when Yale held the top ranking in NCAA D1 men's hockey for two months, Cornell's wrestling team was number one in the country the entire season, or the year before when the Big Red men's basketball team made it to the Sweet Sixteen, wonder no more.
Turns out the Ivies are handing out big money to athletes that are heavily recruited by big time NCAA D1 programs...and some are accepting aspiring students with GPAs and test scores that aren't exactly Ivy League.
An excerpt from an article in today's NYT is below; emphasis added;
"The Ivy League does not award athletic scholarships, but led by endowment-rich members like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, the conference has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in additional need-based aid — with most of the universities all but eliminating student loans and essentially doubling the size of grants meant for middle-income families.
The financial-aid enhancements have had a profound effect on the quality of athletic recruits. Rosters are now fortified with top athletes who would have turned down the Ivy League in the past because they would have been asked to pay $20,000 to $30,000 per year more than at other colleges.
“We’re seeing a significant change in the caliber of the student-athlete,” said Steve Bilsky, the University of Pennsylvania’s athletic director, one of more than 50 Ivy League administrators and coaches interviewed. “It’s not even the same population because the pool has widened. We see a considerable number of student-athletes turning down athletic scholarships from places like Stanford, Northwestern or Duke to come to Penn.”
Andy Noel, Cornell’s athletic director, said: “Eighty percent of our best recruits in the current freshman class would not have come here 10 years ago because we couldn’t match other schools’ offers. The impact has been enormous. And will continue to be.”
A recruited Ivy League athlete must have the academic credentials to survive the stringent and highly selective admissions process at each institution. Coaches have little sway in the admissions process, although they do provide a list of potential athletes to admissions officials. Across the league, about 13 percent of each university’s incoming class is composed of athletes chosen from coaches’ lists.
But the new, plentiful financial aid awards have permitted Ivy League coaches to compete head-to-head in the same recruiting arena as some big-time scholarship programs. And in sports like baseball, soccer, wrestling or lacrosse, where most athletic scholarships are split into partial scholarships worth a half or a quarter of the cost to attend, it is not uncommon for an Ivy League financial aid package to be superior to the athletic scholarship.
At most Ivy League institutions, families earning less than about $65,000 annually are now asked to make no contribution to their children’s education. Families making $65,000 to $180,000 might be expected to pay 10 percent to 18 percent of their annual income on a sliding scale. Ten years ago, such families would have been expected to pay almost twice as much, and their child would probably have accumulated a debt of about $25,000 after four years."
Friday, December 23, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
National Champions - Part Five
This is the final installment of the first chapter of the new history of Syracuse rowing, entitled Mark of the Orange.
While the third 500 was the key, Street knew that Vic Michalson’s Brown was a very good headwind crew. This was shaping up to be a very long two thousand meters, and they’d have to go very, very hard to hold them off. After the effort of the third five hundred, that was a tall order indeed. Brown evidently knew it had to go early, as the SU lead was too big to overcome in the last thirty strokes. About ten strokes into the last five hundred, Street saw them begin to go. He told his crew “Here comes Brown, just relax.” Waiting for a few beats, the boat noticeably relaxed, the tension seemed to dissipate. Ozzie called the sprint, the rating came up, the boat was flying, and Brown’s push into the Syracuse lead halted, then reversed. With 20 strokes to go, the Orange bow was in front and moving away from Bruno. Those last twenty strokes, Henwood would say years later that he knew they would win, and despite the utter exhaustion, there was an incredible feeling of accomplishment, of joy. So much had gone into this six-and-a-half minutes, so many hours of training and so much effort and struggle, and now, in that instant, it was coming together just as they’d pictured it so many times.
As the Orange eight crossed the finish line, the stands erupted. The hometown crowd had watched and listened and cheered, dismay turning to exuberance as SU had driven through the field in that key third five hundred, held off Brown, then moved out again to win convincingly. Now, as the crew men waited their turn to pull into the awards dock, there were handshakes up and down the boat, back-slapping, yells of congratulations and a celebratory dive into Onondaga by Gerry Henwood. With bronze and silver medals awarded, SU pulled into the dock, Street called the ‘one foot, up and out’ and the oarsmen faced a roar from their coach, teammates, families, friends, and fans.
They had done it. They were IRA Varsity Champions.
For Sanford, the victory was sweet indeed. Walking down to the awards dock, he ran into the Herald-Journal’s Bob Snyder. Earlier, Sanford had heard Snyder was going to write Sanford’s epitaph if the Varsity didn’t come home with the trophy. Spotting Snyder, Sanford told him “Looks like you’re going to have to rewrite your story.”
Pedaling the short distance back to the boathouse from the finish line, Sanford recalled the difficult path they’d trod on the way to the podium. That opening loss to Harvard on a course shortened by a blizzard, the injury to Sibley, his decision to keep Street – at 146 pounds, by far the heaviest coxswain at the regatta – in the Varsity, the pressure to produce after two years of freshman championships, the prior year when he felt SU should have won. The memories flooded back, halted only when he pedaled up to the dock.
There, Ozzie Street was in full voice. Sanford remembers Street talking to the press, saying “I told everybody we had this thing back in April and nobody wanted to listen to me; now maybe in the future you’ll listen to me.” Recalling that moment, Sanford said “I can remember him going off and everybody laughing at him. He had a good time with it and he took full credit. He took full credit for it, which every one of them should have. But you’ve got a guy like (three man Andy) Mogish who sees a camera or a recorder and ducks away and he wouldn’t want to talk - and then you’d see (seven man) Bill Reid, who came out of his shell and he starts talking. The guy you couldn’t get that close to over the years, all the time he was feeling the same thing everybody else was. And he was a real big part of that whole thing.”
The crew threw Street into the river in celebration. And then they threw Sanford in too.
After 58 years, the Syracuse Varsity was finally back on top.
While the third 500 was the key, Street knew that Vic Michalson’s Brown was a very good headwind crew. This was shaping up to be a very long two thousand meters, and they’d have to go very, very hard to hold them off. After the effort of the third five hundred, that was a tall order indeed. Brown evidently knew it had to go early, as the SU lead was too big to overcome in the last thirty strokes. About ten strokes into the last five hundred, Street saw them begin to go. He told his crew “Here comes Brown, just relax.” Waiting for a few beats, the boat noticeably relaxed, the tension seemed to dissipate. Ozzie called the sprint, the rating came up, the boat was flying, and Brown’s push into the Syracuse lead halted, then reversed. With 20 strokes to go, the Orange bow was in front and moving away from Bruno. Those last twenty strokes, Henwood would say years later that he knew they would win, and despite the utter exhaustion, there was an incredible feeling of accomplishment, of joy. So much had gone into this six-and-a-half minutes, so many hours of training and so much effort and struggle, and now, in that instant, it was coming together just as they’d pictured it so many times.
As the Orange eight crossed the finish line, the stands erupted. The hometown crowd had watched and listened and cheered, dismay turning to exuberance as SU had driven through the field in that key third five hundred, held off Brown, then moved out again to win convincingly. Now, as the crew men waited their turn to pull into the awards dock, there were handshakes up and down the boat, back-slapping, yells of congratulations and a celebratory dive into Onondaga by Gerry Henwood. With bronze and silver medals awarded, SU pulled into the dock, Street called the ‘one foot, up and out’ and the oarsmen faced a roar from their coach, teammates, families, friends, and fans.
They had done it. They were IRA Varsity Champions.
For Sanford, the victory was sweet indeed. Walking down to the awards dock, he ran into the Herald-Journal’s Bob Snyder. Earlier, Sanford had heard Snyder was going to write Sanford’s epitaph if the Varsity didn’t come home with the trophy. Spotting Snyder, Sanford told him “Looks like you’re going to have to rewrite your story.”
Pedaling the short distance back to the boathouse from the finish line, Sanford recalled the difficult path they’d trod on the way to the podium. That opening loss to Harvard on a course shortened by a blizzard, the injury to Sibley, his decision to keep Street – at 146 pounds, by far the heaviest coxswain at the regatta – in the Varsity, the pressure to produce after two years of freshman championships, the prior year when he felt SU should have won. The memories flooded back, halted only when he pedaled up to the dock.
There, Ozzie Street was in full voice. Sanford remembers Street talking to the press, saying “I told everybody we had this thing back in April and nobody wanted to listen to me; now maybe in the future you’ll listen to me.” Recalling that moment, Sanford said “I can remember him going off and everybody laughing at him. He had a good time with it and he took full credit. He took full credit for it, which every one of them should have. But you’ve got a guy like (three man Andy) Mogish who sees a camera or a recorder and ducks away and he wouldn’t want to talk - and then you’d see (seven man) Bill Reid, who came out of his shell and he starts talking. The guy you couldn’t get that close to over the years, all the time he was feeling the same thing everybody else was. And he was a real big part of that whole thing.”
The crew threw Street into the river in celebration. And then they threw Sanford in too.
After 58 years, the Syracuse Varsity was finally back on top.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
National Champions, part four
This is the fourth installment of the first chapter of Mark of the Orange 2 - the history of SU Rowing from 1962 to today.
Before the race, cox Ozzie Street and Sibley had discussed the crew’s weak point – the third 500. All season this had been a bit of a problem, and the other crews that had raced successfully against SU had usually made their move there. Sibley and Street decided they had to break that pattern. For the finals, the plan was to start well, stay among the leaders, then pull all out the stops in the third 500 and break away.
The finals featured Penn, Cornell, Northeastern, SU, Brown, and California with the Orange in “lucky lane five” (where Henwood, Street, and Sibley had been a year before when they won the second of Drew Harrison’s three consecutive IRA frosh titles). It turned out to be a classic Syracuse IRA race – a bit of chop, good headwind and a tight pack with no clear favorite.
“Are you ready? Ready all. Row!” They were off.
The pack was pretty tight off the line. Then it settled into a dogfight. Henwood felt a lot of splashing at the start. Then the pace settled, the legs started pounding down, and while the boat wasn’t the smoothest it had been, it was moving. It felt stronger and more powerful somehow, definitely different than the feeling in the heats and reps in the two days before.
The good feeling in the boat wasn’t felt by SU fans on the shore. Listening to the race announcer, they heard the Orange in fifth place after five hundred meters. Out in lane five, the conditions were somewhat rougher than the more-protected inside lanes, and that may have helped the near shore crews open up an early lead. But Syracuse was under-stroking the field at a 33, waiting for conditions to improve.
Coming to the thousand meter mark, the Orangemen were right where they wanted to be, behind Penn, Cornell, and Brown all in the inshore lanes, but well within striking distance. Cal wasn’t handling the conditions as well and seemed to be faltering just a bit, while Northeastern’s hard effort the day before in the heat seemed to have taken a toll; NU fell off the pace in the second five hundred.
Ahead at the finish line, the crowd may well have groaned upon hearing Syracuse was in fourth at the midpoint, but Sanford wasn’t concerned. He was thinking “just keep a steady pace as the water gets better, up your stroke and you’re going to go faster and faster and so at the 1,000 meter mark we were in fourth place and then we just went through the rest of them in the last 1,000 just by swinging and rhythm and taking the stroke to a 34-35 as the water got better. And we were long as hell. We were the longest crew out there and into that headwind that paid off because then they just went by – just motored away.”
The Orange were determined to make this their strength; for weeks they’d been focusing on driving through the third 500, and the crew dug in. As the Orange entered the third five hundred, from the bow seat Henwood saw the engine room in the middle of the boat “moving a wall of water with each stroke”. With the powerful Purdy, Evancie, Shamlian and Townsley driving the boat into the headwind, they started to move away from Penn and Cornell. Halfway thru that 500, SU had broken clear of Penn and Cornell, leaving Northeastern, and Cal further back. The power kept coming, and with 500 to go it was SU in front of Brown by almost a length.
Syracuse had gone from well back in fourth to well out in the lead in just five hundred meters. The Orangemen had taken the worst part of their race, that dread third five hundred, when the legs are screaming and there’s so far to go and they had made it theirs.
Before the race, cox Ozzie Street and Sibley had discussed the crew’s weak point – the third 500. All season this had been a bit of a problem, and the other crews that had raced successfully against SU had usually made their move there. Sibley and Street decided they had to break that pattern. For the finals, the plan was to start well, stay among the leaders, then pull all out the stops in the third 500 and break away.
The finals featured Penn, Cornell, Northeastern, SU, Brown, and California with the Orange in “lucky lane five” (where Henwood, Street, and Sibley had been a year before when they won the second of Drew Harrison’s three consecutive IRA frosh titles). It turned out to be a classic Syracuse IRA race – a bit of chop, good headwind and a tight pack with no clear favorite.
“Are you ready? Ready all. Row!” They were off.
The pack was pretty tight off the line. Then it settled into a dogfight. Henwood felt a lot of splashing at the start. Then the pace settled, the legs started pounding down, and while the boat wasn’t the smoothest it had been, it was moving. It felt stronger and more powerful somehow, definitely different than the feeling in the heats and reps in the two days before.
The good feeling in the boat wasn’t felt by SU fans on the shore. Listening to the race announcer, they heard the Orange in fifth place after five hundred meters. Out in lane five, the conditions were somewhat rougher than the more-protected inside lanes, and that may have helped the near shore crews open up an early lead. But Syracuse was under-stroking the field at a 33, waiting for conditions to improve.
Coming to the thousand meter mark, the Orangemen were right where they wanted to be, behind Penn, Cornell, and Brown all in the inshore lanes, but well within striking distance. Cal wasn’t handling the conditions as well and seemed to be faltering just a bit, while Northeastern’s hard effort the day before in the heat seemed to have taken a toll; NU fell off the pace in the second five hundred.
Ahead at the finish line, the crowd may well have groaned upon hearing Syracuse was in fourth at the midpoint, but Sanford wasn’t concerned. He was thinking “just keep a steady pace as the water gets better, up your stroke and you’re going to go faster and faster and so at the 1,000 meter mark we were in fourth place and then we just went through the rest of them in the last 1,000 just by swinging and rhythm and taking the stroke to a 34-35 as the water got better. And we were long as hell. We were the longest crew out there and into that headwind that paid off because then they just went by – just motored away.”
The Orange were determined to make this their strength; for weeks they’d been focusing on driving through the third 500, and the crew dug in. As the Orange entered the third five hundred, from the bow seat Henwood saw the engine room in the middle of the boat “moving a wall of water with each stroke”. With the powerful Purdy, Evancie, Shamlian and Townsley driving the boat into the headwind, they started to move away from Penn and Cornell. Halfway thru that 500, SU had broken clear of Penn and Cornell, leaving Northeastern, and Cal further back. The power kept coming, and with 500 to go it was SU in front of Brown by almost a length.
Syracuse had gone from well back in fourth to well out in the lead in just five hundred meters. The Orangemen had taken the worst part of their race, that dread third five hundred, when the legs are screaming and there’s so far to go and they had made it theirs.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Christmas is coming!
First published in 1963, Mark of the Oarsmen is a narrative history of Syracuse University rowing from 1885 to 1960. SARA has orchestrated the second printing of Mark of the Oarsmen and is now available for alumni and friends of Syracuse rowing. The newly printed 400 page / 80 photo hardcover book will be shipped to you direct from the Ingram Press for the cost of $39.95 (this price includes shipping).This book is an absolute must read for anyone who has pulled an oar for Syracuse. Plan ahead...this makes a great holiday gift!
“Ten Eyck’s varsity crew dashed off to a beautiful start, managed to hold a three foot lead over the Sailors at the first eight mile.
Navy began to come up.
Rammi raised the Syracuse beat.
Stroke for stroke, the two crews races together until a few yards away from the finish, Syracuse with a mighty surge shot out in front by a quarter boat length and won." - Excerpt from Mark of the Oarsmen
Saturday, December 10, 2011
National Champions! Part Three
Despite having to work their way into the Grands via the repechage, Varsity bowman Gerry Henwood and the rest of the crew knew their boat was comprised of guys who had won at the IRAs before in Drew Harrison’s victorious 1976 and 1977 crews, along with seniors Bill Reid, Andy Mogish, future Olympian Bill Purdy, Tom Evancie, and Dave Townsley who all had won silver as freshmen. If anything, the reps had helped the crew get just a bit more racing experience, a big help after the late-season injury to sophomore stroke Art Sibley had resulted in a line-up shift for the Packard Cup against Dartmouth
Weather for the finals featured a headwind causing the first thousand to be either “pretty” or “very” choppy depending on who’s recalling the conditions. The Varsity Grand Final would be the last race of the day, and there was lots of racing to be done before the closing event. In the first of the eights races, Drew Harrison’s freshman eight successfully defended its national championship, handily defeating Northeastern with Cornell coming in third. This was becoming a typical SU freshman performance, with the crew gaining considerable speed at IRA camp and defeating crews that had beaten them earlier in the season. Northeastern had won the Sprints, and the victory was sweet indeed for the Orange frosh. As the bemedaled and beaming freshman eight pulled away from the awards dock, the finish line crowd roared its approval of the first of what they hoped would be an Orange sweep of the eights. The freshmen had delivered, now it was up to the JV and Varsity.
Alas, while the JV was able to finish with a podium spot, it was not the top place. Capturing bronze behind Penn in front followed by the Northeastern Huskies, the second eight acquitted itself well, staying in contention throughout the race in conditions that were slow – and getting slower as the head wind seemed to build.
With the small boats and lower eights out of the way, it was time for the marquee event – the Varsity Eights.
Weather for the finals featured a headwind causing the first thousand to be either “pretty” or “very” choppy depending on who’s recalling the conditions. The Varsity Grand Final would be the last race of the day, and there was lots of racing to be done before the closing event. In the first of the eights races, Drew Harrison’s freshman eight successfully defended its national championship, handily defeating Northeastern with Cornell coming in third. This was becoming a typical SU freshman performance, with the crew gaining considerable speed at IRA camp and defeating crews that had beaten them earlier in the season. Northeastern had won the Sprints, and the victory was sweet indeed for the Orange frosh. As the bemedaled and beaming freshman eight pulled away from the awards dock, the finish line crowd roared its approval of the first of what they hoped would be an Orange sweep of the eights. The freshmen had delivered, now it was up to the JV and Varsity.
Alas, while the JV was able to finish with a podium spot, it was not the top place. Capturing bronze behind Penn in front followed by the Northeastern Huskies, the second eight acquitted itself well, staying in contention throughout the race in conditions that were slow – and getting slower as the head wind seemed to build.
With the small boats and lower eights out of the way, it was time for the marquee event – the Varsity Eights.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Rowing and Democracy
There's a pretty interesting bit of research underway to assess the influence of rowing - the trireme, three banks of oars, ancient Greek type of rowing - on the growth of democracy in Ancient Athens.
According to a piece from Bowdoin College's website,
"Many of the rowers were at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, recruited into service to fit out Athens’s sizeable naval fleet. Their participation in the ship’s teamwork was an embodiment of the new democratic ideal, says Munn.
“These people had no influence and all of the sudden the city adopts a new naval strategy and they’re at the heart of it,” he observes. “Think about what you need to function effectively in a democracy; you need to be able to work as a team. I believe it gave them the confidence to take the rights of the democracy and use them as a political force.”
We'll keep you posted.
Now, we who rowed under Drew, Bill, and Dave know that "democracy" does NOT accurately describe Syracuse rowing - but perhaps that's because ancient Syracuse was one of Athens' rivals...
According to a piece from Bowdoin College's website,
"Many of the rowers were at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, recruited into service to fit out Athens’s sizeable naval fleet. Their participation in the ship’s teamwork was an embodiment of the new democratic ideal, says Munn.
“These people had no influence and all of the sudden the city adopts a new naval strategy and they’re at the heart of it,” he observes. “Think about what you need to function effectively in a democracy; you need to be able to work as a team. I believe it gave them the confidence to take the rights of the democracy and use them as a political force.”
We'll keep you posted.
Now, we who rowed under Drew, Bill, and Dave know that "democracy" does NOT accurately describe Syracuse rowing - but perhaps that's because ancient Syracuse was one of Athens' rivals...
Friday, December 2, 2011
Mark 2 - part 3
Talking with his crew before launch on Friday, Coach Sanford reminded them that “as bad as the boat felt and as bad as your rowed you all know what the boat feels like when it’s going well.” He told the guys to remember what it felt like when they were going well, remember they were relaxed…don’t put any extra pressure on, just go out and row what you’re trained to row and you’ll be fine.”
Off the line, and pretty much throughout the race, Northeastern set a furious pace; SU was content with a solid and comfortable second. The top two would qualify. The day was hot, with temperatures near ninety, and the decision to not go all out may have been influenced by Evancie’s dehydration the day before. Whatever the reason, at the end of the Friday morning racing, SU’s Varsity was into the finals, albeit without the benefit of a win in either the heats or the reps.
The local press wasn’t overly impressed with the race, with one reporter noting “Syracuse was overhauled in the stretch for the second straight day and Syracuse winds up second behind Northeastern.” Both Northeastern and Syracuse were going to qualify comfortably, as third place Princeton was a solid two lengths behind the Orange and wasn’t a real threat at any time. The reporter noted that after the hard row in the previous day’s heats, Sanford’s crew was more than content to qualify without expending any additional energy, energy they’d certainly need in the finals on Saturday.
Less than 24 hours later they were at the starting line.
Off the line, and pretty much throughout the race, Northeastern set a furious pace; SU was content with a solid and comfortable second. The top two would qualify. The day was hot, with temperatures near ninety, and the decision to not go all out may have been influenced by Evancie’s dehydration the day before. Whatever the reason, at the end of the Friday morning racing, SU’s Varsity was into the finals, albeit without the benefit of a win in either the heats or the reps.
The local press wasn’t overly impressed with the race, with one reporter noting “Syracuse was overhauled in the stretch for the second straight day and Syracuse winds up second behind Northeastern.” Both Northeastern and Syracuse were going to qualify comfortably, as third place Princeton was a solid two lengths behind the Orange and wasn’t a real threat at any time. The reporter noted that after the hard row in the previous day’s heats, Sanford’s crew was more than content to qualify without expending any additional energy, energy they’d certainly need in the finals on Saturday.
Less than 24 hours later they were at the starting line.
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