Renewal of Athletics
From remarks prepared by President McLaughlin for the Dallas Alumni Association January 30, 1985
In attempting to look ahead to what lies over the horizon for Dartmouth athletics, I do not want to imply that the past is not important it is. It is the foundation on which our present programs rest; it is prologue to our future expectations. I would like to reaffirm Dartmouth's commitment to sustained excellence in athletics, within the competitive environment of the Ivy League.
Dartmouth today fields thirty-two intercollegiate athletic teams eighteen men's and fourteen women's teams. This is a significantly greater number than are offered by certain of our sister institutions institutions many times our size. Each year nearly 1,100 Dartmouth students have an opportunity to compete at the intercollegiate level, and another 2,500 participate in intramural events. In other words, over ninety percent of our students have a competitive athletic experience during their undergraduate years. To sustain this level of participation, Dartmouth makes a net outlay of over $3,000,000 from its general and unrestricted funds every year. It is a significant commitment. Yet, despite this substantial assignment of the College's resources, we have read and heard it said in recent years that Dartmouth has lost its "athletic will," that Dartmouth is too small to compete within the Ivy League, or that Dartmouth has in its admissions process a bias against athletes.
Though our recent record has not been exemplary, in my opinion the reason for this does not attach to any of the factors just cited. Rather, it derives from a combination of circumstances that are correctable, and which are currently being addressed. Our present situation did not emerge suddenly; it has evolved over a period of time. By the same token, it cannot be resolved within but a single season.
To help you understand the nature of our current challenge, let me cite three things. First, with the advent of coeducation and year-round operation, the demands of the community for recreational spaces increased dramatically, as did the intensity of facility use. Today, every recreational surface we have available (including basketball floors, swimming pools, squash and tennis courts, playing fields, ice rinks and even the river) is scheduled for use virtually to its limit. With the exception of Thompson Arena and the Leverone Field House, our facilities are both antiquated and overused.
Second, with fewer men and women in our entering classes than any other Ivy League school except Columbia, Dartmouth has a greater need to focus its athletic priorities and to have scholarathletes who can compete qualitatively, thus compensating for our quantitative disadvantage. Nonetheless, Dartmouth has followed properly Ivy League academic guidelines more rigidly than have most of our sister schools. The result has been that at times we have been doubly disadvantaged: in numbers and, to some extent, in recruited talent.
Third, the priority given to athletic needs has necessarily not been high at Dartmouth in the recent past. During a period of double-digit inflation, of rising oil prices, and of other financial pressures, some de-emphasis of athletic resources was surely allowable especially in view of our heritage of past success and our enviable record in several highly visible sports: football, skiing, and hockey. It was natural, within that context, to feel that the College could lessen its athletic priority for a short time, to preserve excellence within other critical areas of the institution. Accordingly, there were no major athletic-facility projects included in the allocation of "Campaign for Dartmouth" funds, and the DCAC budget was essentially maintained at a steady-state level, instead of being increased to accommodate heavily increased program demands.
Over time, the three factors that I have just focused upon have contributed to a situation that is today not acceptable to the Dartmouth family a situation that must not be allowed to continue. The quality of a student's experience athletically at Dartmouth is as important a part of education beyond the classroom as is climbing a New Hampshire mountain or having a role in a Hopkins Center play. Learning about the nature of oneself and how to relate to others, within either recreational or competitive settings, is an essential and valuable element of a Dartmouth liberal arts education.
Through the efforts of a great number of dedicated people, we are now reversing trends of the recent past in athletics. Under Athletic Director Ted Leland's leadership, DCAC personnel have an enthusiasm that reflects Ted's own vigorous commitment. While many of our coaches are new, all of them are being exposed to the unique strengths of Dartmouth as a leading liberal arts institution and as a place where one learns how to compete earnestly, constructively, and well throughout one's lifetime not just during any given season. We have a staff of individuals who believe fervently in the scholar-athlete but they also believe in winning.
Fortunately, the other Ivies have evidenced lately a greater dedication to compliance with the spirit and letter of the League's recruiting guidelines; and new alignments for non-Ivy League games are being structured in hockey and football, to enable the Ivies to play out-of-league games with institutions that share a common philosophy concerning academics and financial aid.
Our Admissions Office, the DCAC, and the College's central administration, in general, are today working together, positively and cooperatively, without any compromising of purposes or objectives. The DCAC will be accorded a proportionately larger share of the overall institutional budget this year than previously, and we are working hard to raise $16,000,000 to renovate antiquated, over-utlized space in Alumni Gymnasium and to build new gym facilities that respond to our present and future needs.
We are currently making the commitments and allocating the resources to enable us to close in on "the winner's circle" in this regard. But to accomplish that task we need the help of the alumni.
Our recruiting systems must be strengthened and our alumni marshalled to form a network not only to help identify promising men and women as potential scholar-athletes for Dartmouth, but also to relate to persuading them that Dartmouth is the college for them to attend that Dartmouth would provide them the opportunity for having the finest undergraduate educational experience available anywhere in the United States. In addition, we need alumni help in the completion of our project to secure the requisite $16,000,000 of capital funds. At this moment we have in hand, in pledges or cash, almost $7,000,000. Obviously, "the bad news" is that we have a long way yet to go. But"the good news" is that there is plenty of opportunity for alumni to participate in assisting the College in reaching this objective.
I am enthusiastic and optimistic about our prospects. Dartmouth has too strong a tradition of athletic sucess for us to fail in our determined efforts to re-invigorate and re-enrich this important dimension of the Dartmouth experience. Athletics are too integral a part of education to a pursuit of "the liberating arts" on the Hanover Plain for us not to give them an appropriately high priority today in the life and work of the College. There could be no more persuasive demonstration of the truth of this statement than is reflected by the success that our scholar-athlete alumni have enjoyed in their careers. Dartmouth men and women will not accept being second-rate in anything in which we are engaged. We are too proud of our institution to settle for such; and perhaps that is one reason that the Dartmouth spirit is so respected whenever Dartmouth men and women compete for higher achievement throughout their lifetimes.
