Possible Recruiting Cuts Worry Harvard

In advance of the mid-May meeting of Ivy League athletic directors, Harvard Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise has raised concerns over proposals to reduce the number of football recruits in the conference.

Since a request made in late January by the Council of Ivy Group Presidents—spearheaded by the presidents at Dartmouth, Columbia and Yale—athletic directors at all eight Ivy schools have been discussing a proposal to reduce the number of football recruits each school is allotted from 35 to 25.

The specific proposal comes as part of a larger look at the role of athletics at Ivy schools, which may include reducing the overall percentage of students who enter as athletic recruits.

University President Lawrence H. Summers said last week that the Ivy presidents agreed in January that schools needed to better define the balance between scholarship and athletics in admissions.

“There’s a strong concern to maintain the tradition, the Ivy League tradition of scholar-athletes and to agree together to maintain academic standards—not to sacrifice academic standards to the objectives of athletic recruitment,” Summers said.

During their annual meeting from May 13 to 16, the athletic directors will finalize a proposal that will be sent to the presidents, who will meet in June and make a final decision.

While there are no athletic scholarships in the Ivy League, students who are recruited for athletic teams can make up as much as 20 percent of an incoming class.

Athletic recruiting by elite schools has recently come under scrutiny in the national media following a book co-authored by former Princeton president William G. Bowen, The Game of Life, which claimed that high school applicants classified as “athletic recruits” often enjoy a substantial advantage in admissions.

An April 6 editorial by The New York Times recommended that Ivy schools follow the lead of several small colleges like Williams and Amherst and reduce the scope of their athletic programs.

Scalise said that while “downsizing” the scope of athletics may be a larger goal in the future, the current focus is limited to the football program.

In an interview last week, Scalise said that while no policy recommendation has yet been made, there are plenty of “unintended consequences” to reducing football recruiting that must be considered.

“Redshirting is not allowed in the Ivy League,” Scalise said, referring to a practice by other NCAA schools which allows first-years to practice with a team for a year without losing a year of eligibility. “So if we had a situation where we had 25 [football recruits] in a year, we’d have more people coming in as freshmen needing to play bigger roles on the team, which would put more pressure on people as they’re trying to acclimate to a new situation.”

Without scholarships in football, athletes are free to leave the team with no financial penalty, and attrition is not uncommon in Ivy athletics.

Scalise said he is worried that reducing the number of recruits might hurt junior varsity as well as varsity programs.

“The other thing we thought was that the move from 35 to 25 [recruits] in football would for all intents and purposes put the junior varsity programs at each school in jeopardy—which would violate the Ivy principle of broad-based participation,” he said.

The Ivy League has not reformed athletic recruiting since 1991, when it eliminated “freshman-only” teams, and it is unclear what the athletic directors’ recommendation will be.

Scalise said his discussions have revealed disagreement among different Ivy athletic directors.

“They want what’s best for the league, [but] they’re also thinking about what’s best for their institution,” he said. “A smaller school like Columbia would be more concerned about the numbers than some of the larger schools. Thirty-five people take up a higher percentage of the class at Columbia than they do at Cornell.”

Scalise also said the request for a recommendation reflects the presidents’ concerns that the admissions process might be giving unfair weight to athletics.

“Should we reduce the number of recruits [or] raise the academic standards? That may be the real question [the presidents] are trying to address,” he said.

Summers has not yet indicated how he will vote on any future proposal.

“I think athletics plays a crucial role in the collegiate experience,” Summers said, “but at the same time I think it’s important to avoid excesses in the arms race.”

—Staff writer Rahul Rohatgi can be reached at rohatgi@fas.harvard.edu.