Ivy League Football: A Tradition in Transition

The Harvard football team was once the finest team in the country. In 1919, the Crimson beat Oregon, 7-6, in the Rose Bowl to capture the national championship.

But if current rules regulating Ivy League football are maintained--and administrators see no reason to revise them--Ivy League football will never again regain national prominence, coaches say. The Presidents' Agreement of 1954 relegates Ivy League football to second-class status in the world of big-time collegiate athletics, these coaches say.

However, administrators believe the Ivy League will continue to draw fans to its stadiums and top-flight student-athletes to its teams despite the allure of other programs.

Once upon a time, the Ivy League represented the cream of the football crop. Harvard, Princeton and Yale dominated the national football scene in the early part of the century. Even as late as the 1930s, Ivy League teams participated in national bowl games.

But when the Ivy League was officially created in 1954, league presidents severely limited the league's ability to compete nationally. The Presidents' Agreement of 1954 prohibited Ivy League teams from giving out athletic scholarships or participating in post-season play.

The agreement committed Ivy League schools to fielding teams of scholar-athletes. Finanical aid, the agreement said, should be distributed according to need, not on the basis of athletic talent.

Today, administrators and coaches are living with the ramifications of that agreement. Many Ivy League coaches are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for athletes with schools that offer scholarships.

"I feel we're having more difficulty attracting some of the top athletes because it's so tough to finance an education," Yale Coach Carmen Cozza says. "We're also having trouble getting a big pool of athletes because of the academic standards."

"I worry we are not in as competitive a situation as possible, but that's a situation that is dealt with at the dean's level and president's level," Pennsylvania Coach Ed Zubrow says.

Administrators grant that some athletes who might be able to meet the academic standards of Ivy League schools are lured away by scholarships and the promise of participating in big games in front of big crowds.

"Anyone who comes to Harvard or another Ivy League school does not have ambitions of going to the Rose Bowl," Harvard Athletic Director Jack P. Reardon says.

But these administrators insist some athletes will choose to spend their undergraduate careers in the Ivy League because of what it has to offer both on and off the playing field, but mainly off.

"There are still many fine athletes who know the value of an Ivy League education," Columbia Athletic Director Al Paul says. "There are many athletes whose families will make the sacrifice."

Unlike other teams in the Ivy League, the league's football clubs are not permitted to participate in post-season play. In 1970, the Dartmouth football team was ranked 14th in the nation in both the Associated Press and United Press International polls. But because of the Presidents Agreement of 1954, the Big Green was restricted from competing in a bowl game, even though it clearly deserved to.

In 1978, the Ivy League officially became part of Division I-AA, which features a post-season tournament. (Teams are assigned to divisions based on the number of spectators they draw.) In 1986, the Penn football team was ranked number seven in the Division I-AA poll and would have earned a bid to the playoff had it been eligible. This fall, Harvard was ranked in the top 20 within Division I-AA, but could not test its talents against other highly-ranked schools.

Ivy League football coaches would like to see the restriction on post-season play lifted to give good league teams a chance to compete nationally.

"I think it's unfortunate that the football champion is the only team in our league that isn't allowed to participate in post-season play," Zubrow says. "I would have liked to have seen our team [of two years ago] and Harvard's team [this year] have that opportunity."

But administrators believe that lifting the regulations on post-season competition would send the wrong message.

"To change now would be seen as a re-emphasis on football," Reardon says. "It would be misread. I can see the editorialsts and the people at Sports Illustrated asking if we're going back to big-time football. I think philosophically we're not going there at all."

Besides, these administrators say, the Division I-AA playoff format--a grueling, four-game tournament spread out over five weeks--would keep players on the playing fields and away from the classrooms.

"I think in terms of the amount of practice and the number of people involved, football would involve far more academic displacement than other sports," says Jeffrey Orleans, the Executive Director of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents.

The closest Ivy League coaches are likely to come to post-season play, according to Reardon, is a championship game between the winner of the Ivy League and the winner of the Colonial League, a group of schools including Bucknell and Holy Cross which model their programs after those of the Ivy League and field teams of comparable talent.

The real goal of Ivy League football, administrators say, should be to keep intra-league play competitive. Even this modest goal has proved difficult, however. This year, the presidents agreed to allow Columbia, the owner of a 41-game losing streak, to lower some of its academic admissions standards to allow better football players to attend the school.

But if parity in the league can be maintained, fans will continue to attend league games, administrators say.

"If the competition level is fairly stable--it isn't yet, because Columbia has a ways to go--the product will be good," Paul says. "The athletic skills of the athletes will be comparable, so that will make for a good game."

Ideally, administrators hope, Ivy League football stands as a symbol for the place athletics should occupy in the life of a university. This, Orleans says, is why the administrators refuse to budge on such issues as scholarships and post-season play.

"It's the kind of historical symbolism that remains important to the presidents," Orleans says.

And even the coaches concede that, at least morally, Ivy League football is heading in the right direction.

"I feel we still have the best league around, for a lot of reasons," Cozza says. "I feel the sense of values is right. We don't exploit athletes. They all are permitted to major in what they want. They can feel they're students, not just athletes, which I think is not the case at some other schools."