Patriot Games: Scholarships Pose Threat to the Ivy Way

[CSN Log]

09-18-2009 11:39 PM

Patriot Games: Scholarships Pose Threat to the Ivy Way

Imagine, for a second, that instead of traveling to Holy Cross tomorrow to watch Harvard take on the Crusaders, you were one of over 30,000 fans packing into a maximum-capacity Harvard Stadium as the Crimson kicked off its season against a major-conference team, say, Boston College. It’s a pleasant thought, but the reality is far more complex.

Fordham’s decision in June to begin awarding football scholarships starting with this year’s recruiting class piqued the interest of a lot of people in the Ivy League football community. The move shows a changing mentality in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division 1-AA), which includes the Ancient Eight.

“It’s something we’re definitely keeping an eye on because if they go scholarships—we’re talking about the league now—it will change dramatically,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy says. “The last time any Patriot League school had scholarships in that league was Holy Cross in the ’80s and ’90s. They dominated Eastern football at this level in a way that wasn’t seen before and hasn’t been seen since.”

Read more ... (http://www.championshipsubdivisionnews.com/index.php/2009/09/19/patriot-games-scholarships-pose-threat-t?blog=2#more5618)

[Lehigh Football Nation]

I found some of the things Harvard HC Tim Murphy said were fascinating.


So with its sister conference seemingly headed down a path towards athletic scholarships, is the Ivy League close behind?

“It will never happen in our league, and it shouldn’t,” Murphy says. “It’s not appropriate, because every kid here has something a little bit special about them. I think while in a certain world you might think that might be great for Harvard football, I think anything you do to try to distinguish athletes as being different from other students would not be a good thing.”

Translation: Scholarships for the PL threaten our hegemony in the Ivy/PL world: just imagine if Dartmouth did it, too.


The Ivy League’s resistance to handing out athletic scholarships is motivated by the conference’s understanding of its unique role in collegiate football. According to Murphy, the Ivy League is clear in its pursuit to educate those who deserve it most, whether it’s on the field or in the classroom. And by extending financial aid to a young person who’s intellectually curious, not just because he can kick a ball through the uprights from over 50 yards out, the Ancient Eight is continuing its long-standing tradition of asking more from its students.

But if the Patriot League does step up the quality of its recruits, then necessary alterations will inevitably have to be made to Harvard’s non-conference schedule.

“We’ll have to adjust for sure,” Murphy admits, adding that the decision to schedule Fordham in an upcoming season was made “before we knew they were going to scholarships.”

Sounds like Murphy would push to isolate themselves further from the PL schools with "scholarships"...

[putter]

Definitely some elitist remarks.. "everyone at Harvard has something special about them". I would say all kids are special and I think that he is saying that the Ivy students are better then anyone else and we can't "stoop" to the level of other schools by giving athletic scholarships.

IMO it is all BS anyway. The Ivy schools have said that they don't participate in the playoffs because it interferes with school too much and yet their basketball teams miss way more school than their football program ever would. Basketball is on a more national stage then the FCS can provide in football so it is easy to put football on the back burner.