Harvard Crimson op-ed on Athletic Recruiting

[Aimlesscat1]

@BUMD

For team sports, it is not all meritocratic.
There is enough room for wheeling and dealing under the table and enough space on the roster to park players who coaches know will never see a second of playing time.

Some of this does happen but not always for the reasons that you might think. For the Ivys (and Stanford) some high academic kids who might not be starting material but are excellent players nonetheless are recruited in order to help with a teams academic profile. It allows some of these teams to take some more athletically gifted kids at the expense of others by providing an academic offset. But these kids are likely more than qualified academically.

@TonyGrace

I haven’t really seen this, but our sport is time based. There are also kids who walk-on and aren’t quite strong enough to play much but make an excellent addition to the practice squad.

People don’t realize just how important these recruits are. This type of player is in every major program and many people wonder how they got there because they just sit on the bench every game and they don’t travel to away games. They are recruited and generally understand their role going in.

Practice players are incredibly important to successful programs (their teams need to practice against quality opponents every day) and they are not easy to recruit. Using volleyball as an example a kid good enough to challenge the Sanford volleyball team on a daily basis is good enough to start in the Ivy league. Finding kids willing to do this isn’t easy; if they have reached that level they want to play.

Practice players exist on Ivy league football teams and in most major sports programs. I think that if you look at the roster of a team and there are 3x as many players on the team as are on the field/court you have some practice players.

I personally know kids who went to Columbia (football), and Stanford (volleyball) knowing that weren’t ever projected to be starters. They valued the educational opportunity more than starting and had great experiences.

[TonyGrace]

@Aimlesscat1

Practice players exist on Ivy league football teams and in most major sports programs.

I have a kids doing just that. They are happy and having an even richer college experience because of it. These athletes make up for it by being involved with the team in other ways. These teams offer a lot of leadership opportunity outside off the field. Recruitment Chair, Community Service Chair, Alumni Relations Chair…

[BUMD]

I’m not disagreeing with you. Many teams take high-stat kids to offset low-stat kids. There is value in some sports to take recruits who are predicted to become practice players. But other teams and sports may have other considerations that influence who they choose.

If you are no longer taking the best available recruit for your team, the process is no longer a meritocracy. The more it deviates, the less meritocratic it becomes. That was my basic point.

[Aimlesscat1]

Love it, I am glad to hear that they are having a great experience.

The Columbia football player that I mentioned has an interesting perspective now that he is graduated and in the career world. He is thankful now that he had the right combination to get to Columbia but not P5 programs but admits that it was hard to accept as a 17 year old.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@BUMD

Have you been to a Duke-UNC basketball game or a Michigan-Ohio State football game?

The latter, several times, and each was a ton of fun.

I was actually a huge Michigan football fan at the time I was applying to colleges. And yet, I turned down the honors college at Michigan for a college where the football was definitely not at that level.

@BUMD

These events bring out the alumni (who in other institutions would never come back) as well as the surrounding community. The “halo” effect and free publicity are priceless.

Right, in other words institutional development stuff that ultimately is connected to the financial health of the institution.

Again, keep in mind I am not arguing these colleges are wrong to see competitive varsity sports as critical to their long-term institutional plans. I am just pointing out that is the main reason they can’t go back to the gentleman-athlete model of days long past.

@BUMD

And if this also causes alumni and others to donate to the school, that’s a bonus.

I guess this is our main point of disagreement. I have spent a little time on the inside of some university financial discussions, and this was very much not a mere happy coincidence, it was instead the subject of a very intentional discussion of how competitive athletic programs were critical to institutional development strategies, not least because of how they were often observed as being integral to long-lasting alumni relationships that they believed maximized gifts, or indeed helped make sure there was a powerful constituency in favor of state support.

There has been plenty of other documentation of similar discussions at other colleges. Indeed, as others noted in this thread, this was directly a huge issue when some colleges recently tried to downgrade some varsity sports into club sports, and so on.

So I am quite sure it is not coincidental that colleges that either require large gifts or require large subsidies from state governments in order to make their financial plans work often tend to have robust varsity programs. In fact, it is an intended consequence of such programs that they will help maximize those sources of financial support.

Again, I know sometimes people point that sort of thing out as some sort of argument for why this is bad. But not me. In my mind, this is just pointing out the practicality of these institutions. To be at the top of their markets, they need a lot of money. To get that level of money these days, they need varsity sports, not just gentleman-athlete sports. The fact the modern world works like this should not be a surprise to anyone.

[BUMD]

@NiceUnparticularMan

I guess this is our main point of disagreement. I have spent a little time on the inside of some university financial discussions, and this was very much not a mere happy coincidence, it was instead the subject of a very intentional discussion of how competitive athletic programs were critical to institutional development strategies, not least because of how they were often observed as being integral to long-lasting alumni relationships that they believed maximized gifts, or indeed helped make sure there was a powerful constituency in favor of state support.

I have no real disagreement with what you are saying

In the end, it always comes down to money. Happy students and alumni and loyalty to their alma mater will eventually translate into money.

@NiceUnparticularMan

@BUMD

Have you been to a Duke-UNC basketball game or a Michigan-Ohio State football game?

The latter, several times, and each was a ton of fun.

I might add this. If U Chicago had never left the Big 10, it probably would have never acquired the unfortunate reputation of being “where fun goes to die.”

[Aimlesscat1]

@BUMD

If you are no longer taking the best available recruit for your team, the process is no longer a meritocracy. The more it deviates, the less meritocratic it becomes. That was my basic point.

I didn’t think that you were disagreeing. I don’t think that many people understand the ‘practice player’ concept.

I am familiar with it because it was part of my D’s recruiting journey. Her club has a highly respected, well connected DI coach on staff and during the process he was made aware that her combination of skill and academics was attractive to some P5 programs but that she would need to align her expectations about playing opportunities.

These programs want practice players who will stay and play their role rather than quit or transfer out of frustration. Experience is important; a new crop of incoming Freshman and rising sophomores just isn’t good enough to really test a top team day in and day out. In pretty much any sport look at the size difference between the freshman and the seniors.

This means that a coach does not always recruit the absolute best athlete available but rather the best one who is ‘good enough’, understands the role, and will stick it out for 4 years. If they fill out another priority like improving the team academic profile its an additional bonus for the coach. This is similar to the reality of academics for admissions to top schools. Once someone has crossed the ‘good enough’ bar things other than raw talent become critical drivers.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@BUMD

If U Chicago had never left the Big 10, it probably would have never acquired the unfortunate reputation of being “where fun goes to die.”

My understanding is in a way this was two different facets of a common strategy. Chicago’s commitment to a brand image of uncompromising academic rigor has in many ways served it well in a competitive landscape. Indeed, Northwestern is a sort of obvious contrast in that it is Big 10, has a bigger endowment, and so on, and yet I don’t think Chicago is usually discontent with how that natural rivalry has worked out.

On the other hand, Chicago is probably capped at this level by the fact this branding seems to bump it lower on revealed student preference rankings than its stellar academic reputation would normally imply. But again, they seem (rightfully) OK with how that has worked out.

[BUMD]

@NiceUnparticularMan

My understanding is in a way this was two different facets of a common strategy. Chicago’s commitment to a brand image of uncompromising academic rigor has in many ways served it well in a competitive landscape.

I think this is where U Chicago went wrong. You can have it both ways: academic rigor and athletics. Of course, that takes some compromise. But the Ivy League schools, Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Hopkins (lacrosse), Georgetown (basketball), Boston College, and USC all successfully pulled it off. Is it a coincidence that the overwhelming majority of the tippy-top US private universities have strong D1 sports programs? The outliers are the engineering schools and the D3 UAA conference members.

In FY 2000, the endowments for U Chicago and Northwestern were $3.8 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively.
In FY 2022, the endowments were $10.3 and $14.1 billion, respectively.

I believe that having “where fun goes to die” as part of your branding really kneecaps your ceiling. I know of a lot of students who won’t apply there because of the reputation.

[SportyPrep]

@TonyGrace

@parentologist

It’s really that important for Harvard to have a D1 ice hockey team?

I don’t know but I when I was at Cornell the hockey games were a heck lot more popular than the football games.

Reading this thread has actually gotten me really excited about D1/D3 college sports this year. From a school spirit perspective, I do believe it is a somewhat missing/non-emphasized dimension, to which our family can attest, at schools in Europe and Canada. Even UChicago sees the value in it and is re-emphasizing, to some degree.

Some personal, very memorable “non-D1 football” sporting events:

1. Hockey: Harvard @ Yale at the Whale / Cornell @ Dartmouth
2. Swimming: Williams @ Amherst
3. Squash: Harvard @ Trinity

[NiceUnparticularMan]

But Chicago arguably has a global academic reputation that puts it behind only HYPS and Oxbridge (maybe tied with Columbia too), holding aside the tech universities.

That’s pretty impressive and distinguishes it from most of the universities you mentioned. Possibly it could have had it both ways anyway, but maybe not. HYP and Oxbridge have special historic status, and Stanford is that college for the West. The fact a relative newcomer like Chicago in Middle America arguably passed up the rest of the old Ivies (or tied Columbia), Duke, UVA and Michigan, and so on, suggests to me maybe they did something right.

[Yonkers6thBoro]

@SportyPrep

Even UChicago sees the value in it and is re-emphasizing, to some degree.

Absolutely this. It’s clear that at some fairly recent point athletic success became an institutional priority. I don’t think Robert Maynard Hutchins would mind, but it wouldn’t be happening without recruitment and its guarantee of acceptance.

[TonyGrace]

@SportyPrep

Some personal, very memorable “non-D1 football” sporting events:

1. Hockey: Harvard @ Yale at the Whale / Cornell @ Dartmouth
2. Swimming: Williams @ Amherst
3. Squash: Harvard @ Trinity

How about Princeton in the sweet 16? Alumni showed up in droves and quite literally painted the town orange.

For my college days, it was Cornell vs Harvard hockey games. Fish and all!

[twoinanddone]

@BUMD

There is something unique about sports that unites the entire institution (students, faculty, and alumni) and engenders a collective pride about belonging to that school.
These events bring out the alumni (who in other institutions would never come back) as well as the surrounding community.

Monday night Shaq was at the LSU (his school) v Colorado basketball game. WOMEN’S basketball. And he went back to the locker room to congratulate CU! Go Buffs. He hugged Shalomi Sanders, Coach Prime’s daughter, who I’m sure he’s known since she was born. It’s a small sports world.

I think if Ivies stopped giving early reads or tips or slots or whatever, and just asked athletes to commit (like apply ED/REA) without knowing who the rest of the team will be or if they will ‘for sure’ get in, I think most top athletes, even those who are top in academics) would just take the spots at other top schools that do/can recruit. Isn’t playing hockey at Wis or Mich, and getting a top education, a better bet? Isn’t playing lacrosse at Duke or Virginia going to get them the same great education and a stronger team (assuming the recruiting goes way down at the Ivies)? The Ivies would have a different feel if they stopped recruiting and that may no longer be what prep school athletes are looking for

But I don’t think that will ever happen. Alums like things the way they are, and the Ivies are trying to keep things the way they are, even limiting NIL as much as they can. They aren’t looking for change.

[movingtothebeach]

@twoinanddone

I think most top athletes, even those who are top in academics) would just take the spots at other top schools that do/can recruit. Isn’t playing hockey at Wis or Mich, and getting a top education, a better bet? Isn’t playing lacrosse at Duke or Virginia going to get them the same great education and a stronger team (assuming the recruiting goes way down at the Ivies)?

I think yes as well. Also, virtually every athlete I know who goes through the recruiting process wants to play their sport in college - they aren’t using it solely as leverage in the process. So not only would they be guaranteed a spot at UMich, they would get to be on the team at UMich, vs. applying to Harvard and hoping that 1) they get in and 2) the Harvard team wants them. (Obviously playing time etc. isn’t guaranteed, but if Harvard can’t build its team as part of the recruiting process - if essentially every athlete has to be a walk-on athlete - your chance of playing your sport is higher at a school that can recruit you.)

[NiceUnparticularMan]

The only thing I would note is usually our recruited athletes heading to places like Harvard would not be heading to places like Michigan instead. Maybe another D1, but usually not Michigan’s level (outside of the few niche sports where Harvard is actually very good).

So hypothetically some of these decisions might be a little tougher, if say the only colleges recruiting were neither as good in sports nor as good academically as Michigan.

[BUMD]

Yes, U Chicago has still done well.

But why pitch a narrow tent to attract outstanding individuals, especially when your competitors have pitched bigger tents? In the long term, which method is better at attracting talent in quality, quantity, and diversity?

Why become a school (like the engineering schools and the UAA conference) that has limited school spirit and drive away potential outstanding applicants who appreciate a little school spirit, camaraderie, and relaxation that organized sports provides?

Finally, to your point, why limit athletics because it can be a significant source of perpetual revenue? I can’t imagine how much both schools would benefit if there was an annual U Chicago-Northwestern Big10 football game and a storied sports rivalry to go along with it.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@BUMD

But why pitch a narrow tent to attract outstanding individuals

So at a high level, the usual answer to such a question is that in what are sometimes known as highly competitive, differentiated product markets, marketing a more specific product for which there is less direct competition might actually lead to more demand than marketing a more generic product for which there is more direct competition. This is actually a very well-known strategic issue, that in many markets you’d rather be 10% of the market’s first choice than 20% of the market’s second choice.

From this perspective, you are asking why Chicago becoming a more generic good college would be worse marketing. And the answer is plausibly that you are in fact basically talking about Northwestern. And Chicago’s more specific branding seems to have worked to create a marketing niche for Chicago that has ultimately led to it having a somewhat higher national and global standing than Northwestern, notwithstanding the supposedly broader appeal of Northwestern being a Big 10 college and such.

And then if you ask, well, can’t it have all the good things about both Northwestern AND Chicago at the same time? And plausibly the answer is no, that in fact Northwestern is actually illustrating that the answer is no. And that would make sense if there was enough differentiation in the demand pool.

And we can see indications of that. Like, there are a lot of highly-qualified college applicants who do not want anything to do with Chicago’s reputation, but then a few people gush about how it was probably the best college in the world for them. And sometimes this is supported by things like, say, PhD feeder ratings:

Top Feeders to Ph.D. Programs (Ph.D. Productivity)

Chicago is the first non-tech university on the per capita version of this list, ahead of even Princeton and Yale. Northwestern isn’t even on the per capita top 50 list. That is some solid niche branding which may not mean much to most applicants, but can mean a lot to a critical market segment.

The same thing happens in Chicago’s professional and grad programs–very often there is a specific sort of applicant who thinks Chicago is actually best for them, or at least one of the top couple.

But again, you might say, can’t Chicago be a top PhD feeder and also Big 10? I don’t know for sure, but plausibly not. Again, see Northwestern. Or Notre Dame or USC–nope, not on the per capital list. Duke–much lower on that list. Heck, even Stanford is lower than Chicago.

So on that particular list, being a private college in a good D1 sports league if anything seems to correlate with lower, not higher, results than you would otherwise expect.

So yeah, quite plausibly there is a tradeoff here, and Chicago has benefited by choosing a more niche path versus a more generic path like Northwestern.

[twoinanddone]

@NiceUnparticularMan

The only thing I would note is usually our recruited athletes heading to places like Harvard would not be heading to places like Michigan instead. Maybe another D1, but usually not Michigan’s level (outside of the few niche sports where Harvard is actually very good).

But that’s why I used hockey as the Harvard/Mich example and lacrosse as Harvard(should be Yale)/Virginia/Duke. And only for the 4-5 top recruits. Harvard, Yale, Princeton are always going to have many walk ons who have played at prep schools for years so they will be able to field a team but the possibility of having enough swimmers to cover all stokes or the right combo of football players to have a QB, a punter, a kicker and a bunch of linemen is iffy. That lineman might well say “I’m not going to risk it and I’m taking the scholarship to Vandy.”

I think Harvard/Yale, etc are always going to have pretty good teams, even if they have to have all walk-on teams. But not top teams, not contenders. The very top players will just take the sure thing at other top academic schools.

[Aimlesscat1]

@twoinanddone

I think if Ivies stopped giving early reads or tips or slots or whatever, and just asked athletes to commit (like apply ED/REA) without knowing who the rest of the team will be or if they will ‘for sure’ get in, I think most top athletes, even those who are top in academics) would just take the spots at other top schools that do/can recruit.

This is a very common issue with MIT recruiting. 95+% at WashU or Chicago vs 50% at MIT is an easy decision for many kids.