The Ivy Bowl?

OUOTE/UMOUOTE "For the moment, our plan would be to stick with early admissions but keep a close eye on how this might affect the admissions market." DEAN OF ADMISSIONS KARL FURSTENBERG ON HARVARD'S DECISION TO ELIMINATE EARLY ADMISSIONS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 13

WHAT IF IVY LEAGUE FOOTBALL were to become exclusively Ivy? Gene Orsenigo '34, who first floated the idea more than three decades ago, again raised the issue in a summer letter to athletic director (AD) Josie Harper and in his Sept/Oct Class Notes column. Orsenigo's concept? Restructure Ivy football to exclude non-Ivy play form two Ivy divisions (for example, a Mid-Atlantic Conference comprising Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Penn, and a New England Conference for Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale). Teams would play each of their three inter-league opponents twice, at home and away, and each non-league team once. After this 10-game schedule the conference winners would square off on a neutral field for the Ivy League championship. (League rules would address tie scores and tie standings.)

Not only does Orsenigo mourn the heated rivalries and fervid attendance of Ivy football seasons past, he's also concerned for the arguably inequitable match-up of Ivy and other Division 1-AA teams. Compared to the Ivies, division members such as Colgate, Holy Cross, Lehigh and UNH begin their training and competition earlier and may be betterconditioned and less prone to injury on the field. They may also offer football scholarships and thereby recruit stronger players. "This plan would create more interest among students because there isn't much interest in Ivy football nowadays, judging from the stands," says Orsenigo. (Dartmouth just reduced seating from 18,000 to about 13,000.)

"But the main thing is that the health of our players needs to be considered," says Orsenigo.

Dartmouth Coach Buddy Teevens '79, who has led the College to championship games both as a player and a coach, deems the plan an "interesting thought," one hed consider researching. Apparently, Orsenigo's suggestion has been the subject of underground debate in the league for decades, or at least since he sent his first letter on the topic to all eight Ivy athletic directors in 1974. Back then the response he received was an interested demurral, and not much has changed today. "We do face some significant challenges in competing against non-Ivy opponents," concedes Harper, but "at the same time, over the last five years our schools have won 55 games against 58 losses in non-League football competition. While we don't judge success purely in terms of wins and losses, it's clear that as a league we are very competitive in most of the non-league games we play." Thomas Beckett, Yale's AD, worries about depriving Ivy teams of travel to

other parts of the country for non-league games, something that "adds immensely to the educational experience of the students involved." No AD expressed worry over a greater chance of injury for Ivy footballers compared to other division members.

At least one former player isn't excited about the idea. "I would hesitate to isolate us from the rest of the football world," says former fullback Bobby Caldwell '05. "The crossover between the Ivies and the rest of 1-AA, and the crossover between 1-AA and 1-A, make for interesting match-ups and underdog situations, which are part of the game of football. Many players here and at other Ivies declined offers at scholarship schools in favor of the educational opportunities at the Ancient Eight. It's good to know, even if based on long strings of 'who's beat whom,' how we compare to these other schools."