The Ivy League Concept

The Ivy League members are: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale. The Ivy League competes in the NCAA Division 1 in all sports. Football competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), once known as I-AA.

Before the advent of athlete scholarships at most present day football-playing schools, the Ivy League won more than 40 recognized national football championships. Princeton won 24 and Yale, 19.

The league sponsors more sports and more teams than any conference in the country, 33 men’s and women’s sports and an average of 35 varsity teams at each school. There are no athletic scholarships at Ivy League schools.

“Athletes shall be admitted as students and awarded financial aid only on the basis of the same academic standards and economic need as are applied to all other students”. Wikipedia.com

Since 2002, the Ivy League…

- Produced 47 NCAA individual national champions.

- Amassed nearly 100 student-athletes per year earning All-American honors

- Totaled 136 Academic All-Americans

- Had 223 competitors at the five Olympic Games (2000 – 2010), collecting 91 metals, including six gold.

“This successful competition in Division I national athletics is achieved by approaching athletics as a key part of the student's regular undergraduate experience: with rigorous academic standards, the nation's highest four-year graduation rates (the same as those for non-athletes), and without athletics scholarships. Ivy athletic programs receive multi-million-dollar institutional support as part of each institution’s overall academic programs, independent of win-loss or competitive records and together with extensive programs of intramural and recreational athletics.” IvyLeaguesports.com

Athletics is funded through the general school budget, not athletics receipts. Harvard will have a football program regardless of gate receipts or television revenue. Athletics is one part of the total academic program. Isn’t this the way college athletics programs should be managed?

Of course there are no 80- or 90- or 100,000 seat stadiums in the Ivy League. You will not see an IL school in a bowl game. (The Ivy League presidents forbid post season play in football). There are no $2 million coaches in the Ivy either. But every athlete is a real student-athlete. Every athlete is in the same admissions pool as every other student. Every athlete takes real courses and is on track to graduate.

Why would this same philosophy not work at, say, an SEC school? Because many athletes at SEC schools do not have to meet the same admissions standards as non-athlete students. Are there students at SEC or Big 12 or ACC schools who are academically prepared for college? Students who will never graduate? The Ivy League has a graduation rate of over 90%, compared to some SEC schools who graduate (within five years) only 50% of their athletes. Yet everyFootball Bowl Subdivision () FBS school spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to support tutoring programs for athletes. Is this to help them graduate or just to stay eligible?

One can say that we are not comparing apples to apples. The Ivy League schools have a different philosophy than other schools, especially the large public universities. This is a fair assessment. But let’s do a little “out-of-the-box” thinking for a few paragraphs.

END of PART 1