FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Jonny Utah]

Frank, there are some who feel that drug testing is bad, and that if an athlete wants to use steroids or whatever, he should do whatever it takes to max out human performance.  I wanted to know your thoughts on drug testing.

again, there are people who say that steroids and other drugs arent even proven to be bad for you....

[formerbant10]

Personally Speedy, I understand what you are saying...but I don't agree with any of this total nonsense about transfers.  Amherst has some transfers on their football team as well and their basketball team just took a transfer this year.  Trinity is not the only one doing this.  And who the hell cares if Trinity is in the NESCAC cellar academically, someone has to be.  They are still ranked #25 in the entire country for colleges!!!! That is an amazing accomplishment.  Clearly not as good as Williams being #1 in academics and athletics, but who else is.  The NESCAC as a whole is the best in college sports according to Trinity's President.  And just to let you know where Trinity's priorities are, one of the football players missed most of the Williams game to take the LSATs.  I thought this board was about football.  Maybe someone can tell me more about Colby and let me know if the first two games were flukes or if they are the real deal.  Unless Pat wants to start an academic thread, let's get back to the pigskin please.

[cruiser]

i can talk about colby and assure you they are the real deal. with a passing game this year, and a former all american(aaron stepka) in the backfield who is sharing the load with a 3 time winner of nescac rookie of the week (chris bashaw), the mules has a potent and balanced offense. add this to their always stingy defense and you have a team that would challenge trinity in the NESCAC this year. too bad they arent on each others schedule, it would be quite a game.

[Trin9-0]

The first thing you need to understand is that the football program is NOT the admissions department. Nor has there has been a decision made by the Trinity administration and/or alumni to make football a bigger priority than academics.

All that has happened is that Chuck Priore has worked, WITHIN the system, to build his football program. Trinity has played by the same rules every other NESCAC school has, Priore has just done a better job of recruiting and developing talent. Why shouldn't Trinity be rewarded for their hard work by winning games?

If the NESCAC changes the rules in an attempt to prevent Trinity from dominating in football, Priore will abide by them and will no doubt excell regardless of the changes.

Cruiser: I say it would be no closer than a two touchdown victory for Trinity. I wish Hamilton and Wesleyan would play each other again this week in Middletown, CT and have Colby just come to Hartford instead so that we could see this seasons NESCAC dream match-up.

[cruiser]

no closer than two touchdowns? i guess colby needs to go 8-0 to get a little more respect, understandable though, considering they are only two games into the year so far

[frank uible]

jonny: I think that within the confines of the law each college independently should decide, formulate and enforce its own drug policy with respect to athletics and otherwise and should refrain from dictating to other colleges what they do in this regard.

[bant551]

re: Trinity vs. Colby:

I'd have to agree with the person who said Trinity would beat Colby pretty soundly.  It may be true that Colby looks great right now, but Trinity is at a different level.  From what I know from observing from afar, Trinity is better the any of the recent undefeated Williams or championship Amhert teams from recent years (meaning the last 10 years or so).  I doubt that Colby is at that level - yet - in their first year emerging as a league power (if they end up with a great record at the end of the year).

[gordonmann]

Here's some reading that has nothing to do with transfer policies or not playing in the playoffs. 

Roemer "Rocks" Amherst

[Knightstalker]

Maybe NESCAC schools don't want transfers because they affect the one thing that all schools seem to have in common, their bottom line.  Why let someone come into the school that was smart enough to attend another less expensive school to get core courses out of the way and then going to a better school to concentrate on their major, lets get the full 200k out of them instead of only 150k.  (prices are just used as examples and may not reflect actual NESCAC prices) 

Maybe Frank is right and the so called giants of Liberal Arts education need to do away with their elitest attitude (Note: elitest is used in reference to the administrators running the schools not the faculty, staff and students).  Perhaps if they had a cranialrectectomy performed they would be able to smell the coffee and see that things have changed a little in the US since 1800.  (Note: Date is completely hypothetical and used for illustration purposes only) (Note:notes are used to explain to nitpickers that nits need not be picked)

[speedy]

Maybe NESCAC schools don't want transfers because they affect the one thing that all schools seem to have in common, their bottom line.  Why let someone come into the school that was smart enough to attend another less expensive school to get core courses out of the way and then going to a better school to concentrate on their major, lets get the full 200k out of them instead of only 150k.  (prices are just used as examples and may not reflect actual NESCAC prices) . .

Accepting transfers would not adversely affect the bottom line at all. Otherwise Trinity wouldn't do it since after all it is close to the bottom of the NESCAC in terms of wealth! Every school generates revenues based on the number of students enrolled. It does not matter whether the number of enrollees in a particular year is generated by transferees or four-year stuents making the normal progression.

[Trin9-0]

As long as we're making hypothetical NESCAC rule changes, I figured I'd waste some time at work and propose this scheduling scenario:

Divide the NESCAC into 2 divisions East & West:

WEST: Hamilton, Middlebury, Williams, Trinity, Wesleyan
EAST: Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Tufts
(divisions divided strictly based on geographical location)

Each team plays EVERY other team making it a 9 game regular season schedule. Then the two teams from each division play a NESCAC championship game.

It's difficut to say what the Championship Game match-ups would have been because not every team played each other, but based on straight records (tie-breaker is head-to-head result) here's what we could have expected:

1999: Middlebury (6-2) vs Williams (7-1)

2000: Amherst (7-1) vs Middlebury (7-1)

2001: Williams (8-0) vs Amherst (7-1)

2002: Amherst (6-2) vs Williams (7-1)

2003: Trinity (8-0) vs Colby (5-3)

2004: Trinity (8-0) vs Amherst (6-2)

Hey it's no NCAA playoffs but what do you think? At least it prevents teams from having to share a title like the 3 way in 2000 (Amherst, Colby, Middlebury all tied at 7-1) or 2003 (Trinity, Williams both 7-1) or the possible two team 8-0 scenario we may have this year.

[formerbant10]

Not a bad idea....just switch the teams around in the East and West to line them up a little bit better.  Hamilton's group in the West and Tufts' group the East.  I like they way you think.

[dirtybirds8-0]

hmmm I like the brackets....I will run for a NESCAC presidency, just so I have a vote on the subject.

[speedy]

Great idea. There's precedent for this in the NESCAC -- it is already done for baseball, which has an east and a west conference. However, Trinity is in the east with Bowdoin, Colby, Bates, and Tufts. I suspect that this is a function of the desire to keep the "little three" together, all of whom are in the west conference. Here's a link on the way baseball is set up in the NESCAC:
http://www.nescac.com/sports/baseball/home.htm

[bant551]

That championship game formula sounds like a great idea.  Under that scenario, only two of the teams in the NESCAC have to face the horrific academic consequences of playing an extra game.