A Balanced View of Athletics
by Eric Harrison '58
As a Haverford grad, Class of 1958, I am very much aware of the, at times, astonishing success our teams are having in intercollegiate competition. Worthy of special note is the extraordinary success Tom Donnelly enjoys with cross country and men’s track and field. Bringing track up to the level of Division I competition is, in itself, deserving of special notice. Success in other major and minor sports contributing to a fundamental shift in priorities at Haverford is exciting. Yet, according to the articles in The New York Times (Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005, “In Winnowing the Candidates at Haverford, Every Little Thing Counts” and “Books and Bouncing Balls In a Delicate Balancing Act”), questions emerge about the methodologies of recruiting and, in my mind, the ends and purposes of the program as a whole.
I confess to having been a product of a Haverford athletic program which, at times, came under the unfavorable scrutiny of the school’s newspaper editor, boasted a football squad of only 22 men who were celebrated at halftimes by the famed “Drum and Kazoo Corps,” but had spectacular success in some sports, notably soccer, tennis, fencing, and cricket. The 1957 football squad, moreover, I am proud to say, won four, lost two, and tied two of its season’s games. Everything considered, the coaches were, I believe, generally idolized or at least highly regarded by the players. In my opinion, they were gentlemen skilled in their professions who prepared their teams for competition with outstanding Ivy League and Middle Atlantic schools extremely well, winning contests with Penn, Navy, Princeton and other quality competitors. This was particularly true of the soccer team coached by the well-liked Jimmy Mills. I attribute the successes of the athletic program at that time to three factors: 1) a balanced view of the value of athletics by the school administration; 2) the quality of the athletic department’s leadership, headed by Roy Randall; and 3) the spirit and dedication of the Haverford athlete. Based upon my own experience and conversations with another Ford, it is conceivable that a type of recruiting did go on in the ’50s but on a scale much less sophisticated than that described in The New York Times articles.
As a former head and assistant track and football coach at secondary level, and Haverford’s weight event coach (1955-1958) for the track team by permission of Coach Alfred “Pop” Haddleton and his successor, Joe Miller, let me share a few insights into the world of scholastic-intercollegiate athletics: One, there is nothing wrong with losing if you are prepared to learn from the lessons it teaches—in the halcyon days of Haverford in the ’50s, we were told that “character building” was important. It was. I do not recall any student who bemoaned either team or individual losses, nor did any administrator attempt to tie sports performances to the image of the College. The great professional football coach Vince Lombardi would call learning from losing, “second effort.” (His legendary successes were, by the way, based upon training and intensive skills development of the squad at hand, not aggressive recruiting.) Two, how the individual athlete prepares him/herself for any given contest/event is a function of who he/she is as shaped daily by peer group, family, and society—variables not always amenable to the persuasion of coaching techniques. The coach who thinks he/she can routinely control these variables is kidding him/herself. All of this is to say that because a particular athlete shows up for practice with proven talents and skills, whether from off- or on-campus, does not mean that those talents and skills will automatically emerge as and when needed. Three, coaches are themselves the unique, sole builders and sustainers of the quality of their work and must be administratively given both latitude and support. Good coaches, further, should be encouraged to “recruit” from within the existing student body. Members of the student body not immediately involved in varsity athletics are not excluded from trying out for varsity athletic competition and they should be regularly encouraged to do so. Physical development does not stop at the secondary or collegiate level or because the student is not tapped for participation on a particular team. Four, winning is a developmentally useless value if it does not enhance the character growth of the student-athlete—that is, winning cannot come at the expense of good sportsmanship, respect for others, and appreciation of—rather than the downgrading of—the opponent. Five, winning should not be a primary strategy for desirable institutional publicity and/or public relations. Student-athletes, and their achievements, are not substitutes for positive college public relations efforts. The focus should always be upon the student-athlete and his/her positive development.
The inevitable questions raised—Are athletics over-emphasized at Haverford? Do athletics detract from other, serious intellectual involvements? Should the athletic program be counterbalanced by more emphases on the fine arts programs?—are vital and speak well to the Haverford College tradition that such questions are better, and healthy, for the student body openly discussed, rather than concealed in the fabric of administrative decision-making. Yet, a critical ethical question for Haverford remains: whether the student applicant for the freshman class who has good grades, specializes in a third language, and happens to be a lacrosse goalie, being recruited with the utmost, vigorous recruiting skills, is, in the end, merely a means to an end using complex recruiting tools to fill a temporary team vacancy?
To achieve the same result would it not be more ethical—and productive—to encourage the lacrosse coach a) foreseeing eventual positional vacancies, to develop applicable talent within the ranks of the existing team—he/she has, after all, players from the three preceding classes to select and train the replacement. The question then becomes whether the new freshman with developed skills at one position will surpass an underclassman with a minimum of at least one year of experience on the team but temporarily without the advanced skills at the desired position. All scholastic-intercollegiate athletics is predicated upon the dedication, desire, and hard work of team members who are periodically asked to assume new responsibilities to help the team; b) look to the existing student body, perhaps to athletes in other sports in other seasons, to recruit the needed skilled position; or c) depend on the quality of his own program to attract worthy candidates from the ranks of the student body, whom he would then train and instruct. An illustration comes from an experience I had with a premier high school soccer coach who always recruited his soccer goalies from the ranks of top basketball players because they had good overall body balance and obviously good hand control of the ball. The famous New England track coach Ralph Lovshin routinely recruited his shot putters also from the ranks of basketball players due to their proven, overall body balance. Relief from positional vacancy needs does not always have to come from the outside.
In conclusion, as I read the comments of Mssrs. Kannerstein and Rawlings, which mainly seem to stress how an institution is perceived in the win-loss columns, I had the sense that emphases were/are being placed on public relations strategies rather than upon the development of the student-athlete where a positive attitude and capability for intercollegiate competition are professionally nurtured. The ultimate value of any intercollegiate program should be placed on how the whole team is prepared for competition in terms of training and skill development, not upon a “must win” mentality forged in the corridors of the admission department and the student application process. An even more nagging question is whether the team-building-by-admissions approach will foster coaching dependence upon newly recruited player skills rather than reliance upon hard work by the coaching staff to develop existing team skill levels? Training and skills development are the very best means available in the academic and arts curricula to foster student success—are these long-proven means now somehow inadequate for the athlete? Haverford College, with its cherished Honor System requirements, high academic standards, small class size, and retention of Quaker values is a great institution that, to sustain its image, does not need an artificial culture of sports- building dependent upon overly elaborate recruiting methods.
Eric Harrison ’58, a multi-sport athlete while he was at Haverford, was subsequently invited to practice as a walk-on with the Baltimore Colts. He attributes much of his success as a high school teacher and coach to his experiences at both Haverford and Phillips Exeter Academy.