<p>With all the talk about athletic admissions, do the students actually come out and support the games?</p>
<p>What do the stands look like, empty or full?</p>
<p>Which games attract the biggest audiences?</p>
<p>Against which teams?</p>
<p>Dartmouth Alumni are agitated about this topic, and have scheduled an online discussion for January 26.</p>
<p>SEE: <a href="http://athletics.dartmouth.edu/genrel/012005aab.html%5B/url%5D">http://athletics.dartmouth.edu/genrel/012005aab.html</a></p>
<p>Wow!</p>
<p>Thanks Byerly, you're always helpful--however, looking over some of these boards I wouldn't want to be on your bad side ;)</p>
<p>any other comments from current or future D students-----or alums?</p>
<p>theres a lot of controversy in dartmouth about the athletic program. the prez supposedly said they should be like swarthmore and cut the football program</p>
<p>It was the head of admissions, not the president. He didn't say it should be more like Swat, but congratulated Swat for dismantling their football progam in the interest of academics at Swat. Some have interpreted this to mean that he wants the same thing to occur at D. The letter is four years old and all is well.</p>
<p>Well there a few Greens who wouldn't say "all is well" in light of the 1-9 record last year - the worst in the school's history.</p>
<p>Bringing back Coach Teevens, who did a good job at Dartmouth earlier before flopping and getting fired at Stanford in more recent times, will probably be a move in the right direction.</p>
<p>i remember there was a big deal a few years ago when dartmouth cut the funding for their women's swimming and diving team completely unexpectedly. the rest of the ivy league protested on their behalf and it ended up getting re-instated.</p>
<p>the apparent lack of athletic enthusiasm seems to be more on the administrative side than the student side though--and even there, just some bad choices with bad publicity. i don't think it's a condition, or for that matter a trend. plus, it's just not intuitive for a school full of so many "out doorsy" types.</p>
<p>Dartmouth does have a "numbers squeeze" however. Its hard to fill 30+ varsity rosters and also meet all the "diversity" goals, attract valedictorians, etc., when you have the Ivy League's smallest student body.</p>
<p>The only school anywhere near its size - Princeton - will shortly be expanding the student body by 10% or more. Yale has plans to do the same thing medium range, and Harvard longer range.</p>
<p>Cornell, Brown, Columbia and Penn are all significantly larger.</p>
<p>Dartmouth seems conflicted about losing its "personality" or whatever if it grows.</p>
<p>Remember also that the huge varsity athletic programs run by the Ivies can run some huge deficts, even without athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the rest of the ivy league protested on their behalf and it ended up getting re-instated.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's not true. Get your facts straight. I know what you like to think, but Dartmouth could care less what the other Ivies thought about that. What actually happened is that the student body petitioned on their behalf, and the alumni association raised enough money through a special fundraiser to allow the swimming team to continue.</p>
<p>Byerly, just out of curiousity, how do you know so much about the Ivy League schools? The amount of information you have on all of them is unbelievable!</p>
<p>beatty, this is NYCFan's stock-in-trade. If you dare him, if you show the least bit of interest, he'll stay up all night and compulsively post stuff about the doings of Ivy grads in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritania, Romania. This guy has nothing else to do but spam college discussion websites with interesting but worhless information all day and all night. He interviews for Harvard and shills for same with every breath in his body. At least you can enjoy the interesting information he provides from journals to which you would otherwise have had to spend your hard-earned cash to subscribe. He is an interesting pastime, nothing more.</p>
<p>You guys are mean. So what if he stumps for Harvard? I think you should be welcoming the discussion and the fact that he posts ("spams"?) relevant news articles. He certainly doesn't have to. I might be new here, but I find his posts to be quite helpful and informative and not overly "partisan". Thanks, Byerly, for digging these articles up and sharing them with us.</p>
<p>I think more alums care at all about the football team than current students. I've never even been to a football game! (This includes THREE homecoming games.)</p>
<p>I did go to a hockey game once. It was really boring. But more people go see the hockey team than the football team.</p>
<p>Just wanted to share that Dartmouth's baseball team was recently picked (predicted of course!) by Baseball America to win the Ivey League Championship this year! Pretty cool!</p>
<p>hey xanatos. sorry, you are right actually. i didn't mean to say that dartmouth students and alum didn't protest--i assumed that was implicit. i just thought it was remarkable that a lot of dartmouth's ivy competitors were so upset to see dartmouth go that they threw in their support to help out as well.</p>
<p>To answer the OP--there are definitely a lot of people who get excited about the games. Hockey more than football, because our hockey team is ridiculously good--I've had a great time at a number of hockey games. If you're worried about the amount of spirit, don't be. Whether they care about sports or not, almost everyone is pretty gung-ho Dartmouth.</p>
<p>ya, have to agree with kelsey... the princeton-dartmouth hockey game was packed and an awesome time, despite losing 3-0 :/ which really shouldn't have happened.... oh well. </p>
<p>football though is lacking in spectators... I would say maybe 30-50 people go to each game. I dunno football is not my thing so I can't say for sure but thats the impressing I get.</p>
<p>Typically this year (a miserable one for Dartmouth football) the attendance was around 6,000 per home game.</p>
<p>People would go to the Football and Basketball games if the teams were any good. </p>
<p>Lacrosse and Hockey get good numbers with Hockey filling up Thompson Arena a few times a year.</p>
<p>6,000 spectators for a football game is still larger than the student body. People from all around collapse on Hanover for Dartmouth games. Alumni come back and tailgate at fraternities. However the actual school spirit for Football is abysmal.</p>
<p>The best teams on campus are definetly the Women's Hockey and Lacrosse teams who are both consistently top ten in the nation. Women's Hockey went to the NCAA Frozen Four last year. These teams however, don't get much support. (as is generally true for women's sports everywhere)</p>