Letters

Ground Rules

Clifford Jordan's thoughtful article, "The 'Real World': Ivies in the cold, cold ground," {January-February issue} was long overdue. For a number of years, Ivy League football teams (with the possible exception of Yale) have been unable to compete with teams outside of the league. In view of the different ground rules regarding-spring practice and financial aid, this is in no way surprising. It should be noted that most of the outside teams played by Ivy schools were already classified I-AA, so it is apparent that even these schools were using different rules than the Ivies.

For the Ivy League colleges to hire semi-pro teams, as is done at Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, the Big Ten, Southeast, Southwest, Big Eight, Pacific 10 and, indeed, every other I-A conference, is ridiculous and unthinkable. The great majority of players attending the major I-A and many I-AA colleges are there for one purpose - eventually to play professional football. They are not academic students. They are hired football players (or basketball players), and the growing incidence of criminal acts of coaches and athletes constantly being reported on our sports pages is becoming a national disgrace. Many illiterate hoodlums perform for these "colleges" and never graduate.

Football at Millsaps, Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, and other small private schools is good football and obviously enjoyed by those who play and watch it. In the 19205, '30s, and '40s, these small schools played larger schools (including Dartmouth) and regularly were slaughtered in one-sided games. Today, they wisely play only each other. This is what the Ivy schools must do. Playing teams that useifferent ground rules in spring training, financial aid, and scholastic requirements is patently unfair to Ivy players.

Ivy football games played 'by Ivy teams against one another (and, if possible, against additional colleges who agree to abide by the same rules) will always be exciting football. If necessary, in the interest of financial responsibility, the Ivies should return to single platoon tootbal! and smaller coaching staffs.

Joe Paterno of Penn State may be right in believing that the "real world" encourages the present standards of conduct practiced by the big time schools. But he is totally wrong in believing that these practices are right. They are not. College athletes should be legitimate students, attending college to learn serious and seful things. Athletics should be an important but secondary activity in college. If they ever Lecome the primary purpose at the Ivy schools, those schools will no longer represent the values that have made them the great scholastic institutions that they are.

Jackson, Miss.

I would like to make the following observations regarding Mr. R. S. Burke's letter published in the January-February issue as well as the article by Cliff Jordan in the same issue:

• No, Dartmouth did not have a good football team last fall, not when they lost to William and Mary, a team that had been beaten by a combined score of 140-0 by four previous opponents.

• I hope our standard of comparison never finds us in a league with Bowdoin, Middlebury, et al.

• The Ivies have all kinds of problems. Columbia, for instance, should probably drop football. However, excellence in all things, including sports, is no crime and what is wrong with having spring football practice anyway? Is it going to taint the boys? No. We should reinstate it so that maybe we can be competitive with the University of Massachusetts, Holy Cross, Colgate and, on occasions, Army and Navy.

• The Ivy League should not become a closed circuit. All that would do is prove Joe Paterno right when he said we're in another world.

• You can have both an education and touchdowns. The Ivy League should pull their collective heads out of the sand and work toward policies that will enable them to compete with the caliber of teams they have scheduled over the past few years. With an occasional exception, that has not been possible for quite some time.

Houston, Texas

Undergraduate Editors

I am most grateful to Lisa Campney '82 for her review of the Dartmouth Plan in the January-February issue. The pluses and minuses she cites are enlightening. On the minus side, the social and academic fragmentation she describes causes me some concern.

A product of the "old school," and one who can still get sentimental about the Dartmouth experience, I wonder what the "D-Plan's" longterm effects will be.

New Carrollton, Md.

I look forward to reading and regularly enjoy the monthly observations of the authors of the "Undergraduate Chair," and it has been a long time since I have appreciated more, shared the opinion of, and empathized with the contents of such column than that written by Rob Eshman in the December issue.

Being an observer of the admissions process for more than a decade as an alumni interview, er, I have often wondered privately as to the substantive quality of the so-called "acceptable" activities and experiences which seem to uniformly proliferate in the applications of candidates advancing their cases for admission. As a presumably discerning and mature group, it concerns me that as interviewers we frequently seem to both qualitatively elevate and succumb to the imagined fascination of activities in which the reporter purports to have "administered poultices to Masai warriors" and subconsciously disdain, as being inherently inferior, the experiences of the ice-cream-scooper or watermelon-seller.

Perhaps, as Eshman might suggest, in such instances the gatekeepers of our careers interpose themselves in our judgment process to the point where they become the juries decreeing the fact of an applicant's future successes and career choices. This process has resulted, I fear, in the failure on more than infrequent occasions, to recognize and accept the "joy, intrigue, drama, and humor" that may be incumbent in an individual's pursuit of the latter options.

I trust and hope that Dartmouth undergraduates will find the confidence necessary to measure their achievements not solely against those of friends, nor as defined by graduateschool admissions departments, but instead as independent, responsible, and yet dynamic custodians of society. I suggest that the utility and practicality of human experiences are best measured subjectively, and "different" need not be aberrant or socially unproductive. To such end, I suggest that all alumni participating in the selection process of those persons responsible for the future of Dartmouth College be ever vigilant of the temptation to measure the acceptability of achievements or non-achievements of a candidate in a context artificalh measured in perspective by personal prejudice.

Manchester, N.H.

What's in a Name?

The other day, a colleague of mine gave mesmall stack of Dartmouth publications. I was very much enlightened by having read them, and I was also initiated into the long-running controversy over which nickname should be aFplied to Dartmouth's athletic teams. Since I am an outsider, having been schooled in the Midie West, at the University of Michigan, PC: haps I might be able to offer an outsider's resolution of the problem. Probably it has not beer suggested by more than 25,000 or so others Multiple nicknames.

My own beloved school has endured under the appellations Wolverines, Maize and Blue, and, in more recent years, simply the Blue, as is heard in the cheer: "Go Blue!" (In recent Rose Bowls, this has been spoken more as a supplication than as an imperative.) Yale has been known as the Elis, the Bulldogs, and the Blue; Harvard has been called the Johnnies, the Cantabs, and the Crimson; Syracuse has cherished the Saltine Warriors and the Orangemen; West Point has been called the Cadets and the Black Knights; and, perhaps most extraordinary of all, Auburn has known itself as, respectively, the Tigers, the Plainsmen, and the War Eagles. The point seems to be: It doesn't so much matter what you call it; it matters what it is. And Dartmouth, it seems to me, as one who knows the place only in the wistful, wondrous memories of its old grads; is something very special, whatever you call it.

Michigan '54

Scarsdale, N. Y.

Debate

The Dartmouth Review has been the subject of considerable alumni interest in these pages and elsewhere. In particular, many have indicated their desire to know more about the debate between Professor Jeffrey Hart and myself on the topic: "Resolved: That the Dartmouth Rtview has had a deleterious effect on the intellectual and social life of the College" (which took place last November 19).

Since the Review printed an account of that debate before it actually took place (the issue dated November 23 was distributed on campus the evening of the debate itself), it is especially appropriate to give alumni the chance to judge this debate for themselves.

I am pleased, therefore, to make available at cost an unedited 120-minute cassette tape of the debate (including also the report on the Review by National Public Radio's news program, "All Things Considered"). Those interested in a copy of the tape should send a check for $6 with their name and address to: Debate," OISER, North Fairbanks Hall, Hinman Box 6195, Dartmouth College, Hanover. N.H. 03755. To keep the price down, it be impossible to handle requests not accompa nied by payment.

Hanover,, N.H

{Roger Masters is the John Sloan Dickey TbirdCentury Professor of Government. Ed.}

The ALUMNI MAGAZINE welcomes comment from itsers. For publication, letters should be signed and specifically to the Magazine (not copies of communicaWother organizations or individuals). Letters exceeding ■words in length will be condensed by the editors.