Bender Warns on Advising, Asks 'Sane' Football Policy

Dean Bender yesterday pointed out "a college is not an annex to a football team" to a Cum Laude Convocation assembly at Phillips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, New Hampshire.

In outlining to the preparatory school student body his personal views on how to evaluate liberal arts colleges in general, Bender said: "I mention this only because this relatively minor college activity has in recent years become a major scandal which, in my opinion, threatens the integrity of American college education."

The Proper Question

The question generally asked is how to get a successful big-time football team, Bender said, whereas the correct question is: "What is the proper place of football in the over-all educational program of a college" and how should it be kept in that place.

"The fact is," Bender said, "that no college nowadays can have a consistently top-notch, big-time football team without buying it."

A large number of colleges have succumbed to pressure from a certain type of alumnus, the "subway" alumni, coaches, and other people whose main interest is in sports.

Speaks as Individual

"A little sanity is clearly needed to make football again an amateur college sport," he said. This means, he said, no more recruiting and subsidizing of players, and organization of practice and schedules "so that they fit into academic needs rather than vice versa."

Bender said he saw no reason football could not be handled the same as such other sports as crew and soccer. "Colleges would then have a game which could contribute something to college education."

Before mentioning football as the last portion of his 40-minute address, Bender emphasized he was expressing only his own views and was not speaking for Harvard.