FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Vandy74]

The "holdout" colleges are interesting.  They are also the schools that have NEVER had a female prez.  Believe the six schools that have or will have female prezs' are the ones in the group that have their FIRST female president.  Other posters can correct me as nessary.

amh63....I believe you are correct, although I am only familiar with Middlebury's past presidents.  Together you and quicksilver make an interesting observation.  It seems the trick to finally having a full nine game conference schedule was to stack the deck with 50% female voters.  This thinly veiled plot to sissify the NESCAC must be stopped here and now.

[JEFFFAN]

This hire makes Williams more feminine. As Williams gets more feminine and more global, American football becomes less important at Williams.

Amherst is 39-6 since Biddy Martin became president.   Williams should hope for more of that with its new president!

[lumbercat]

The current dialog is indicative of the off the season environment in NESCAC football- will post some recruiting results soon that may help to lessen the winter radio silence on CAC football.

In the interim I'm making no comment on female presidents or dead presidents other than to confirm from a perspective of Bates Bobcat Football that President Spencer totally supports the program and has recently approved some significant upgrades for the program with an emphasis on recruiting.

Trinity continues to kill it in recruiting but no one is working harder than Williams and Bowdoin.
Jack Cosgrove is a dynamic addition for Colby who will get great kids to Waterville like no one else in the conference.

[PolarCat]

Let's agree to disagree on Clayton Spencer.  She is coming up on her 6th anniversary at the helm.  She had plenty of time to fix the hot mess that is Bobcat Football before now.

Hopefully the new AD recognizes that the amount of money you throw at recruiting doesn't matter if your potential recruits watch the Bants blow out the Bobcats 51-0 during their campus visit.  Unless you can back up those recruiting dollars with better coaching (so the boys actually have a chance) and better equipment (so those kids you recruited aren't ending their seasons and careers due to concussions) it's all happy talk.

From this former Bobcat parent, Prez Spencer is more concerned with her legacy than with football.  Bathrooms for non-binary-gender students got a lot more support than the football program while my kid was playing.

I was speaking to a fellow WLAX parent last weekend at the Bowdoin-Amherst game.  His son is being recruited by both Bates and Williams.  Guess what my advice to him was?

[frank uible]

nescac1 - I'm disappointed. I know that you can do a lot better than a truthy "come on, man".

[nescac1]

I'll defer to what others have already noted regarding the football success of female-led institutions, Frank.  Res ipsa loquitor. 

[OldCardinal]

For what it's worth, here are the overall records for the last three years, along with the gender of their president.  My guess is that it makes zero difference, but the evidence sure doesn't indicate it hurts.

School   W   L   Pres.
Trinity   23   2   F
Amherst   19   6   F
Midd.   18   7   F
Tufts           18   7   M
Wesleyan   17   8   M
Williams   8   17   F
Hamilton   8   17   M
Bates   7   18   F
Colby   5   20   M
Bowdoin   2   23   M

[gridiron]

Yes, Coach Cosgrove already has been making a big difference.  His football knowledge and experience at the 1AA level, combined with charisma and leadership skills will allow him to get the most out of his players.  He is an excellent recruiter.  This season though, he will not have had the opportunity to impact the selection of players, as he was hired after all applications were submitted. Also understand that this particular recruiting season football was operating with a couple of fewer tips than allowed.

With President's Greene's strong desire for a more competitive football program perhaps enough pressure can be applied to admissions to increase flexibility to the same degree exhibited by some other programs regularly at the top of the football standings.

[monjmafb]

Hi All,

I am new to this blog and have read it with great interest.  My son will play for the Ephs in the fall.   I saw the recent news that Maud Mandel will be the new President of Williams.  I think/hope that she will not hold back Ephs football.  My greatest concern is that she is coming from Brown, the perennial cellar dweller in the Ivy.  Brown's facilities were so bad(among other factors), that my son decided not consider it in the football recruiting process.  The above said, she got her Master's and PhD at Michigan, so I have to think she understands at least something about how successful football creates community(and loyal, financially-supportive alumni).

Another word on Bowdoin recruiting, which was a hot topic in this forum a couple of months ago.  I strongly encouraged my son to consider Bowdoin(a great school)  and he was in communication with a recruiter there, but my take is that Bowdoin just did not recruit hard enough.  My son's grades were very good and his board scores were above the average of all of the NESCACs so I do not think academics had anything to do with it.  I think he would have committed to Williams anyway, but Bowdoin never really pushed it, so we did not visit the campus.

[nescac1]

monjmafb, welcome to Williams!  Hope your son has a great four years ahead of him. 

So long as the current coach and AD stay in place (and there has been no suggestion that either is leaving anytime soon), I can't imagine that the new President would want to mess with burgeoning success in football, or the enormously successful athletic program more generally.  And regarding facilities, as I'm sure you have seen fortunately Williams has a state-of-the-art football facility in place, so no worries there for the forseeable future.  (I would however love to see the school plan soon for a major overhaul of Chandler Athletics Center and Towne Field House, which are two of the very few facilities on campus that could really use a major upgrade, and I'd actually be stunned if such plans aren't on the near-term radar). 

Comparing Williams to Brown, I think the difference is overall institutional resources.  Brown, while still having a massive 3.5 billion dollar endowment, doesn't come close to competing with its Ivy peers in that regard, so the institution has probably had to make some (again, relatively) tough spending decisions that perhaps its peers did not.  I've also never seen Brown as a school that prioritizes athletic culture in the way that Williams does.  Williams, on the other hand, already has the largest endowment in NESCAC (2.6 billion, FAR higher than Brown's on a per-capita basis), and is in the middle of a capital campaign that is on pace to raise something like 700-750 million dollars once complete in June 2019 (it's nearly hit the goal of 650 million already).  So resources are certainly not going to be an issue ...

On another note, has NESCAC ever been in better shape 1-10 in terms of overall capabilities of coaching staffs?  Trinity, Amherst, Middlebury, Tufts, Williams, and Wesleyan all have absolutely ace-staffs.  Colby's new coach has a stellar resume and is getting rave reviews it seems.  Harriman is certainly solid at Bates.  Hamilton's staff has that program on the upswing for certain.  And even Bowdoin has, it seems, well-regarded coaches, but someone has to finish last ... 

[DadintheStands]

monjmafb - I will second NESCAC1's welcome to Williams.  My son is a FY this year on the team and I look forward to extending the same open-armed welcome we received last fall to the new class of Williams football recruits when we see you and the other new recruits and parents in August.  Your son is joining a great group of young men and I hope you will get to meet the equally good group of parents that make the journey each Saturday in the fall to cheer them on.

[ColbyFootball]

Cosgrove got a late start on recruiting this year- all of the anger and dissension against Micheales and Colby as seen on this board had an adverse effect on Colby recruiting--scared a number of kids away. This may not be a great recruiting year for Cosgrove but watch out in the future.

You state the negative Michaeles postings on this Board "scared a number of kids away". Would you mind saying how you know this? I know you can't post their names, but maybe you can provide specifics without exposing them. But what I'd really love to see are posts from ANY kids that were scared away from Colby because of what was said on this Board. Quite frankly, I find the claim that multiple recruits were frequenting this Board and did not go to Colby because of what I, or anyone else , said about Michaeles ridiculous. With nearly the entire coaching staff retained, and the only major change being Michaeles, you will quickly see that he was the problem. Colby will be a different team next year, and the years to follow.

[PBPOP20]

It's not ridiculous, it's a fact.  This is one of the only consistent sources of information regarding NESCAC football.   Parents and prospective student athletes of any NESCAC school devour any information available when considering their options... this board is visited early and often.

What's ridiculous is to think this board doesn't have influence.

[ColbyFootball]

It's not ridiculous, it's a fact.  This is one of the only consistent sources of information regarding NESCAC football.   Parents and prospective student athletes of any NESCAC school devour any information available when considering their options... this board is visited early and often.

What's ridiculous is to think this board doesn't have influence.

Okay, if you say so. You are dealing with some of the elite academic schools in the Country, and comments on this Board are the deciding factors. And when it gets more specific, claiming multiple recruits decided against a particular school, as suggested with Colby, you are giving this Board far too much credit. This is a nice fun entertaining, and at time informative, site. But, anyone who reads this stuff and makes a major college decision because of postings has lost his or her mind.

[Mr. Ypsi]

It's not ridiculous, it's a fact.  This is one of the only consistent sources of information regarding NESCAC football.   Parents and prospective student athletes of any NESCAC school devour any information available when considering their options... this board is visited early and often.

What's ridiculous is to think this board doesn't have influence.

Okay, if you say so. You are dealing with some of the elite academic schools in the Country, and comments on this Board are the deciding factors. And when it gets more specific, claiming multiple recruits decided against a particular school, as suggested with Colby, you are giving this Board far too much credit. This is a nice fun entertaining, and at time informative, site. But, anyone who reads this stuff and makes a major college decision because of postings has lost his or her mind.

But, much more often than not, that is a good working definition of a teenager, is it not?