FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[iamhuge]

The playing level in the Prep Leagues is also top notch.  We played Cheshire in CT.  They sent 5 players D1 last year and I believe 4 this year.  Suffield was very close behind.  Poindexters?? Really? lol.....

It's like anything else...there are some powerful teams, some awful teams, and a bunch of teams in the middle.  I do think that even on some of the really good teams, the roster can be somewhat top-heavy, as a lot of these schools just aren't big enough to fill out a roster with quality players after bringing in their studs.

You're spot on.  I think in the ISL there are a lot of goofy unathletic kids in starting positions.

[Jonny Utah]

The ISL has 16 football teams.  After watching St. Sebastians live twice last year (12th place in the ISL), I can say for a fact that they do not have any goofy or unathletic kids starting on their football team.  The bottom two teams, (St. Marks and Brooks, both 0-8) may have a few kids like that, but I'm going to bet there aren't many.

The new NEPSAC conference (Evergreen) now has some teams that probably better describe what you are talking about.  Some of these schools have 100-300 kids and don't have the manpower to field great teams.

[lewdogg11]

The ISL has 16 football teams.  After watching St. Sebastians live twice last year (12th place in the ISL), I can say for a fact that they do not have any goofy or unathletic kids starting on their football team.  The bottom two teams, (St. Marks and Brooks, both 0-8) may have a few kids like that, but I'm going to bet there aren't many.

The new NEPSAC conference (Evergreen) now has some teams that probably better describe what you are talking about.  Some of these schools have 100-300 kids and don't have the manpower to field great teams.

There are teams in the NESCAC, LL, and E* with goofy unathletic kids starting. 

[met_fan]

The ISL has 16 football teams.  After watching St. Sebastians live twice last year (12th place in the ISL), I can say for a fact that they do not have any goofy or unathletic kids starting on their football team.  The bottom two teams, (St. Marks and Brooks, both 0-8) may have a few kids like that, but I'm going to bet there aren't many.

The new NEPSAC conference (Evergreen) now has some teams that probably better describe what you are talking about.  Some of these schools have 100-300 kids and don't have the manpower to field great teams.

There are teams in the NESCAC, LL, and E* with goofy unathletic kids starting. 

There certainly are

[nescac1]

I'd say that it is empircally false that ANY "unathletic" kids are starting for NESCAC football teams.  There is no one starting for Williams, for example, who wasn't a star of his high school football team (unless they went to an absolute national powerhouse high school), and almost every guy was one of the best players in his entire football conference / league (many were conference or league players of the year, in fact).  Lots of guys who captained their teams and/or were stars in high school can't even get PT on the varsity at Williams.

Generously defined, "unathletic" would mean, to me, the bottom 50 percent (at MOST) of the population, athletically-speaking.  All of the NESCAC football starters are almost certainly from the top 10 percent of 18-22 year olds nationally, in terms of athletic talent.  Most if not all are from the top 3-5 percent.  I don't see how that can ever be considered "unathletic," unless your benchmark are pro athletes, in which case, yeah, every NESCAC player in unathletic. 

[Pat Coleman]

NESCAC1 -- there are nine other teams and almost all of them are always worse than Williams. Are you sure that using Williams as your example is a good idea?

[met_fan]

I'd say that it is empircally false that ANY "unathletic" kids are starting for NESCAC football teams.  There is no one starting for Williams, for example, who wasn't a star of his high school football team (unless they went to an absolute national powerhouse high school), and almost every guy was one of the best players in his entire football conference / league (many were conference or league players of the year, in fact).  Lots of guys who captained their teams and/or were stars in high school can't even get PT on the varsity at Williams.

Generously defined, "unathletic" would mean, to me, the bottom 50 percent (at MOST) of the population, athletically-speaking.  All of the NESCAC football starters are almost certainly from the top 10 percent of 18-22 year olds nationally, in terms of athletic talent.  Most if not all are from the top 3-5 percent.  I don't see how that can ever be considered "unathletic," unless your benchmark are pro athletes, in which case, yeah, every NESCAC player in unathletic. 

There were guys playing with me at Hamilton who were definitely not stars on their high school teams, and starters who I would not consider particularly athletic, and this was in the mid-nineties when they were going 5-3 instead of 1-7.

[maxpower]

All of the NESCAC football starters are almost certainly from the top 10 percent of 18-22 year olds nationally, in terms of athletic talent.  Most if not all are from the top 3-5 percent.

Um, are ya kidding? Included in this pool are:

-All Division I and II athletes in all sports.
-All other Division III athletes, including the kids that play on better football teams than those in the NESCAC, of which there are many.
-All junior college athletes
-All 18-22 year old professional athletes (nearly all of which are "more athletic" than any division III football player)
-All 18-22 year olds which go to college but do not play sports, however athletic they may be (I was a freakin' music major and we had kids way fitter than some of those on the football team)
-All 18-22 year olds who do not go to college. This includes a great number of kids in the military, many of whom I would imagine could challenge your football teams in athleticism.

I'm not saying all these examples are more athletic, but this is a sample of your competition.

Throw onto this that the NESCAC has tougher academic requirements for admission than most schools, and that the football team is made up exclusively of men (obvious, but it does make a whole half of the population immediately eligible to be stood up against your boys in terms of athleticism).

I haven't crunched the numbers, but until I see some, I'm gonna say you're out of your freakin' mind.

[Frank Rossi]

Between Mount Union and UW-Whitewater alone, I think we'd see about the percentage necessary to sink that philosophy of nescac1 right off the bat.

Listen, let's play this out for a second beyond what Max did a post ago.  NESCAC schools have a certain academic standard in the first place (as do many non-NESCAC schools) for admission.  It is much rarer to find an academic/athletic All-America type than it is to find one that has only one of those attributes.  That's not to say smart athletic kids don't exist -- it's just a rarer find.

That said, I would say that only the top 20% of the most highly regarded academic students are of an athletic caliber to be considered in the top of the athleticism category.  Inside that 20%, I would estimate that 80% of those student-athletes attend IVY LEAGUE schools.  That leaves 4.0% based on my informed estimations of how this works, assuming the NESCAC schools adhere to their regular standards. 

To give nescac1 any credence, the assumption would be that the NESCAC gets 100% of the remaining students.  My honest answer -- NO F'ING WAY.  Some student-athletes care about playing 10-game seasons, playoff potentials, geographic location and the rest.  I had a 99 average and a 1380 on my SATs under the prior scoring system in high school and didn't apply to one NESCAC school.  I applied to two Ivy League schools, Notre Dame and Union.  While I wasn't an athlete, my point is that academic whiz-kids don't just blindly point toward NESCAC schools. 

There are enough Unions, Hobarts, RPIs, Ithacas, F&Ms, CMUs, etc., out there to catch the interest of some of the best and brightest in this world.  Someone said earlier in this thread that there is a notion to chase the academic school that compliments your academic desires best.  For engineering students, NESCAC schools don't jump off that list easily.  For California students, the same rule applies.

This isn't to tool on NESCAC schools -- they are fine institutions.  That said, when I called a basketball sectional weekend at Williams, I realized that I could not have happily lived in an environment like Williams presents students (which is interesting since Schenectady didn't provide a much more overall "outside the gates" atmosphere, but the proximity of certain things like Albany and Saratoga made it more bearable along with Union's Greek system).  It's just not for everyone.  So, putting Max's statements together with mine, I think you might need to put at least one further decimal place in front of nescac1's guesstimate to approach the reality of the situation.  Do I think NESCAC schools would be competitive against UWW and MUC-type schools in football?  Hell no.  Do I think they could make games against some of the LL and E8 schools competitive?  Absolutely.  I just think there needs to be a reality check here based on this idea that NESCAC schools are vacuums for the best athletes in the country -- when even many of the best academics in this country go elsewhere in the first place.

[nescac1]

You guys are just totally misunderstanding my point.  My point is NOT that NESCAC starting football players are in the top 10 percent of college-bound athletes, or even high school athletes.  My point is that they are athletic compared to the entire population of high schoolers, which includes a huge pool of people who in no way, shape or form have an interest in athletics, tons of guys who tried but failed to make high school teams, guys who couldn't start for high school teams, guys who are average starters for high school teams (many of whom themselves are "athletic" by any fair definition of the word).  

There are about 27 MILLION people 18-24 in the U.S.  Meanwhile, there are 380,000 or so college varsity athletes in the U.S.  SO WE ARE STARTING WITH A BASELINE OF ONE OUT OF SEVENTY PEOPLE (roughly) who even play varsity athletics.  Even if you want to say SIX TIMES THAT MANY could have played varsity athletics at D-3, we are still only at roughly ten percent.  Bringing up to TWENTY TIMES THAT MANY (and I honestly don't believe there are 20 people of college age in the country who could be varsity college athletes for every 1 who is, but fine, let's make that assumption), and we are still at roughly 25 percent.  And starting football players at NESCAC schools are FAR from the BOTTOM of all male varsity college athletes in the country, as football is a highly competitive, very athletic sport to begin with, and there are a lot of guys worse than NESCAC starting footballers on various football rosters across D-3.  So if anything, my initial guestimate was not nearly low ENOUGH.  Looking at the figures, there is simply NO varsity male starting football athlete at any NESCAC school who could ever be called "unathletic" even if you narrow the definition of that term to "anyone in the bottom 75 percent of the population, athletically" which I think is really too broad / unfair.  [NOTE EDITED, INITIAL NUMBERS OFF]

But if you guys want to attack me, at the very least, answer these question: what is your definition of "unathletic" in terms of what percentile of the population, athletically, do you have to fall in to be considered unathletic, and what percentile of the general population do you believe the worst NESCAC football starters fall into, and why?  Because none of y'all have thought this question through in a systematic way.

You guys are just fundamentally misunderstanding the baseline.  You are judging whether someone is "athletic" against the pool of all college-bound athletes, when it is extraordinarily difficult to be good enough to be a varsity athlete in college.  Even at the worst NESCAC school, all sorts of guys who WERE stars on a high school team, who by any fair definition are athletic, would never receive any playing time on a varsity athletic program of any kind, and end up playing club sports or intramurals.  

Williams' THIRD TEAM RB was an all-state player in Texas, for the love of God.  He could be a heck of a lot worse and still be considered "athletic."  But to be fair to Pat's point, I looked up the first random Bowdoin running back I could find, Brian Glazewski, who ran for all of 35 yards last year at a below-average NESCAC program (Bowdoin) as, what, their fourth, fifth string RB?  He was FIRST TEAM all-state RB in high school in New York (I chose RB because you aren't going to often mind much info on linemen on google and they are tougher to judge).  I'm sure it was in some small state category, but sorry, there is no way, shape or form someone like Glazewski, one of the top players in new york at one of the most athletic positions, could ever be considered "unathletic."  But that is what y'all are saying, for you to be right, the Glazewskis of the world would be unathletic.  No frigging way.  Again, this is not someone who was even CLOSE to starting at a lower-tier NESCAC program last year.  And I could pick a million more like him.  

I would not consider myself "athletic" by the way.  But I couldn't have played varsity football for my high school, nor would I have had a prayer of making the roster of any NESCAC team (at least any that has cuts).  Yet, I am still coordinated enough to play all manner of sports reasonably well.    

[nescac1]

Again, I think y'all are mistakenly viewing the question as, are NESCAC starters among the best college athletes in the country?  That is NEVER what I said, and that seems to be the baseline Frank and others are working from.  The question is, are they among the top-tier (I used top ten percent) athletically of all people their age in the country?  I have no doubt in my mind that they are.  And if they are, I don't see how they could be considered "unathletic."  Which is a very different standard from saying, they are all truly elite athletes (which I would consider the top half of one percent athletically, maybe more narrow than that).  You are acting as if I made the latter claim, which I didn't and wouldn't. 

[frank uible]

Would someone be kind enough to state the issue in 25 words or fewer?

[nescac1]

Frank, the original issue is, are any NESCAC football starting players "unathletic."  I say no.  Of course, that all depends on your definition of "unathletic."  Is is the bottom 25, 50, or 75 percent of the general population, in terms of athletic ability?  I think the answer is no under ANY of these definitions by the way ...

[lewdogg11]

Maybe Williams doesn't have any goofy and unathletic starters.  They are Williams after all.  And they are all in underground secret fraternal organizations and wear blazers and have perfect hair and look like Adonis, but that is neither here nor there.  However, there IS atleast 1 kid in the NESCAC, E8, or LL that will start for his/her football team this year that is goofy and unathletic.  I don't need numbers or opinions.  That is a fact. 

(More than 25 words - Less than 5 paragraphs)

[Knightstalker]

It is actually very simple, all things NESCAC are better than the rest of the country.