<p>What is life like at Wesleyan for athletes?</p>
<p>I am probably the LEAST qualified person in this forum to answer this question since I have never played a competitive sport (unless you consider 8-ball a sport.)</p>
<p>But, I hate seeing a big fat -0- in a topic column two days in a row.</p>
<p>I far as I can tell, athletes are just part of the general student body up to and including the time when everybody starts to bid for upperclass housing. Their training and practice routines amount in some instances to the equivalent of an additional lab course, in terms of time and scheduling. Because of the amount of time spent with team mates, the bonding starts early and in the majority of cases -- at least among males -- athletes tend to share housing with other athletes.</p>
<p>Housing options may include one of the two overtly sports oriented frats on campus, neither of which are co-ed. The single sex status of the latter may set the brothers up for some degree of political animus, but, it has been low key of late.</p>
<p>Otherwise, athletes are just part of the scene. I remember when Swarthmore eliminated football and wrestling some years back, part of the explanation was that the teams didn't fit in with "Swarthmore culture". That isn't true at Wesleyan since, when you think about -- no one fits into a neatly defined "Wesleyan culture". Even the frats are tolerated for the very reason that together they throw two or three of the best attended parties of the year.</p>
<p>Athletes at Wesleyan do something else, perhaps: they ground the place. And by that, I mean, they are by and large, political moderates; they are accustomed to taking their time and listening, whether it's to instructions on a particular piece of equipment or to plays on the field. They've learned by experience not to be quite as reactive as some of their fellow students. They make good politicians. </p>
<p>Which may explain why even though athletes study the same things other Wesleyan students do, I've noticed that Economics and Government are particular favorites. </p>
<p>Last Spring, a group of Wesleyan seniors went on to found a website dedicated to political discussion. At least one of them was a member of the football team and others may have been varsity players as well:<br>
<a href="http://www.wesleyan.edu/newsletter/campus/0606beyondpartisan.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.wesleyan.edu/newsletter/campus/0606beyondpartisan.html</a></p>
<p>what life is like as a wes athlete is entirely dependent on your gender and what sport you do.</p>
<p>
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Otherwise, athletes are just part of the scene. I remember when Swarthmore eliminated football and wrestling some years back, part of the explanation was that the teams didn't fit in with "Swarthmore culture".
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</p>
<p>That really didn't play a role in the decision to drop the two sports. Wrestling was dead anyway; there weren't enough students interested to even field a team. Wrestling is vanishing from the NCAA scene across the board.</p>
<p>The football decision was all about admissions slots. With fewer than 750 male students on campus, the school had to allocate 10% of its male admissions slots specifically to football players each year. With the demand for slots to achieve other institutional priorities (diversity, engineering, music, art, international, and so on and so forth) some of which require admitting "low stat" kids, there simply weren't enough slots, especially "low stat" slots, to fill a football team. Just a few years earlier, the Dean and the President almost forfeited a game because they barely had enough healthy players on the football roster to field a team. The school was caught in no-man's land. The athletic department was clear that, if the school wanted to field a football team, they had to divert even more slots to football recruiting. The school was unwilling to do that and decided the only practical solution was to discontinue football.</p>
<p>The Swarthmore culture issue had reared its head back in the 1980s, when the team was actually winning. A very successful football coach was let go because his team had become increasingly disengaged from the campus community -- both socially and academically. But, that was not an issue when the decision to drop football was made in 2000.</p>
<p>Baseball -I'd appreciate any comments you can offer</p>
<p>johnwesley-your comments were very helpful. Many thanks.</p>
<p>I played tennis in High school and ran track off and on, but i was never terribly serious about them.
I decided that I wanted to do a sport at wesleyan, and do something that I'd want to stick with for the next four years. I started crew three weeks ago and I love it. I'm on the novice squad but a lot of people who start at that level end up going up to varsity and doing very well.</p>
<p>I have practice everyday from 4 15-6 30ish. And then AM practices on saturdays coupled with regattas on the weekend every now and then (this weekend is the first one). It's pretty hectic, because I have class right before and right after crew sometimes so I'm eating an apple or two for dinner and eating ramen noodles when I get back at night but I think it's worth it.</p>
<p>I ride my bike around campus a lot (the back wheel's busted, dang it i can't ride it uphill anymore, might just buy a new one) and that helps save time. As far as student athletes go, a lot of people I know who are doing sports have enough time to do other things they like. Someone I know plays basketball and does acapella, one of the guys on the crew team is on varsity and is a triple major in math econ and comp sci. So if you're up for the challenge go for it.</p>
<p>As far as time management goes, it's nice to be on a sports team. You never need to wander around campus on the weekend looking for stuff to do, you know where everythings going on.</p>
<p>Did anyone here hear about immortal technique playing at wes?
Tickets were sold out before i could get them, but all my friends thought it was spectacular!</p>