Excerpts from Faculty-UAC Report On Participation in NCAA Tourney

(Editors note: Last January the Undergraduate Athletic Council submitted a report to the Faculty Committee on Athletic Sports urging Harvard's participation in the NCAA national hockey championships should the team be Invited to compete. Last week the FCAS announced its decision to allow the team to play in the ECAC, the Eastern championships, but not in the NCAA, where Harvard would be playing teams from Western Hockey League. Following are excerpts from the 15-page UAC report and the answers provided by the FCAS in a letter to UAC head Mark Woodbury III '62.)

* On the question of a longer season, the UAC said:

"During the whole season of 29 games, including the NCAA games, the team will only lose two days of lectures . . . Besides, the extra time needed for practices and games will be welcomed by the hockey player because outside of the season he usually wastes more time when he has no specific physical activity to tax his energies."

The Faculty Committee replied:

"Because the hockey season in recent years has tended to be so long and intensive the Ivy League colleges now by agreement try to limit their seasons to no more than 22 games in term plus four games during the Christmas recess. In our view lengthening the hockey schedule by two weeks of championship competition would be an undesirable extension of our season and would interfere more than we wish with the academic work of the squad."

* On the question of recruiting, the UAS said:

"It is quite true that the athlete-students at Western colleges receive athletic scholarships, scholarships that are only extended as long as the recipient tries out for the college team. The UAC Committee does not condone the athletic scholarship, and agrees that Harvard's policy of unconditionally granting aid is superior. However, a few considerations must be made before the chastisement begins. First, Harvard teams, hockey and others, play teams, not only in the whole New England area, but in the immediate vicinity of Boston, that grant athletic scholarships. Second, there is a control over athletic scholarships at each Western college, exercised by the faculty committees at these institutions. . . Finally, it is to be remembered that Harvard grants admission partly on the basis of extracurricular achievement of which athletic ability is a part.

"In the West, the recruiting is done by the coach where as in the Ivy League is done by the alumni. It is a known fact that Coach Murray Armstrong of Denver receives $500 to cover recruiting expenses for a tour he takes through western Canada. On this trip, the coach perspective players. . . and tells them about the advantages of attending DU. Similar practices are performed for the Ivy League by their mass network of alumni. In these areas where it is known that a certain desired athletic ability is abundant--for example, Ohio, in football--Harvard clubs are very active. . . they do not pretend to pass judgment on either but it is interesting to note that the NCAA has given legal sanction to the coach approach."

* On the question of the position of the hockey player as a student in Western colleges, the UAC reported:

"An investigation of the facts shows that the Western College player is perhaps gaining more out of his education than many of the students here at Harvard. . .

"A well informed member of the who has studied at Denver University said: "By Ivy League standards, Denver is a third rate institution . . . , We only hope that Harvard is not indulging in intellectual snobbery, refusing to play an athletic contest with a team representing a school with a lower scholastic standard. We hope critics never have to resort to arguments such as: 'Sure those Western hockey players haven't flunked a course out there, but that's only because it's easy.' No university will stand being dictated to on educational standard least of all Harvard. . ."

In answer to these points, the FCAS wrote, in part:

"The circumstances of hockey in the Western League seem to us to be on the wrong track, involving generally the heavy recruiting of Canadian players, the use of athletic scholarships, and what appears to be an intensive effort to develop a big-time, commercially successful sport. . . These circumstances, pressing college sports on toward commercialism in aim and professionalism in spirit, are quite precisely the circumstances that the Ivy League colleges have banded together to avoid. . .

"We are proud of our hockey squad and we understand why its members would wish to have the honor of representing Harvard and the East in a bonafide national collegiate hockey championship. But we cannot think of the NCAA championship as an event toward which we should sensibly point our hockey aspirations season after season."

* On the question of the position of the hockey player as a student in Western colleges, the UAC reported:

"An investigation of the facts shows that the Western College player is perhaps gaining more out of his education than many of the students here at Harvard. . .

"A well informed member of the who has studied at Denver University said: "By Ivy League standards, Denver is a third rate institution . . . , We only hope that Harvard is not indulging in intellectual snobbery, refusing to play an athletic contest with a team representing a school with a lower scholastic standard. We hope critics never have to resort to arguments such as: 'Sure those Western hockey players haven't flunked a course out there, but that's only because it's easy.' No university will stand being dictated to on educational standard least of all Harvard. . ."

In answer to these points, the FCAS wrote, in part:

"The circumstances of hockey in the Western League seem to us to be on the wrong track, involving generally the heavy recruiting of Canadian players, the use of athletic scholarships, and what appears to be an intensive effort to develop a big-time, commercially successful sport. . . These circumstances, pressing college sports on toward commercialism in aim and professionalism in spirit, are quite precisely the circumstances that the Ivy League colleges have banded together to avoid. . .

"We are proud of our hockey squad and we understand why its members would wish to have the honor of representing Harvard and the East in a bonafide national collegiate hockey championship. But we cannot think of the NCAA championship as an event toward which we should sensibly point our hockey aspirations season after season."

In answer to these points, the FCAS wrote, in part:

"The circumstances of hockey in the Western League seem to us to be on the wrong track, involving generally the heavy recruiting of Canadian players, the use of athletic scholarships, and what appears to be an intensive effort to develop a big-time, commercially successful sport. . . These circumstances, pressing college sports on toward commercialism in aim and professionalism in spirit, are quite precisely the circumstances that the Ivy League colleges have banded together to avoid. . .

"We are proud of our hockey squad and we understand why its members would wish to have the honor of representing Harvard and the East in a bonafide national collegiate hockey championship. But we cannot think of the NCAA championship as an event toward which we should sensibly point our hockey aspirations season after season."