MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[goodknight]

Hope's President (and big sports fan) Jim Bultman announces his plans to retire after the 2011-12 academic year.
http://www.hope.edu/pr/pressreleases/content/view/full/30513
Can Calvin's (not-so-big sports fan) President be far behind?
Stay tuned while we page through the Master Plan....

Is Byker one of the bigger "anti-football" people in the administration?

He was at one time, but rumor has it that he's more neutral now.

An ad-hoc committee has been formed to talk about the possibility of football at Calvin and has met at least once. Word is that in addition to cost, the high rate of brain injuries reported in the news lately was a big topic of discussion at the first meeting.

I picked up a Chimes on my latest venture to campus and there was a student-written editorial on the topic.  The writer seemed to focus on the idea that football would have a negative impact on the Christian culture of Calvin's community, due to the sport's correlation with drinking and boorishness.  Not a very "reformed" perspective if you ask me.

The total depravity of football players? Sounds plenty Reformed to me.

BTW, kudos to all of the Hope fans for showing enough restraint to avoid jumping on the obvious straight line about brain injuries and Calvin student-athletes. You Hope and Calvin folks really are pretty decorous towards each other during the off-season, aren't you?

We're just better at making mute points during the pre-pre-season.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

[northb]

I picked up a Chimes on my latest venture to campus and there was a student-written editorial on the topic.  The writer seemed to focus on the idea that football would have a negative impact on the Christian culture of Calvin's community, due to the sport's correlation with drinking and boorishness.  Not a very "reformed" perspective if you ask me.

How does this student feel about hockey?

Also, one study suggests hockey has the highest incidence of concussion.  Is it just me or is using the 'fear of concussions from football' argument a little strange for a school with club hockey.

Indirectly addressed in the following:

Now for the more serious objection:

It's the typical, long-standing and possibly puritanical protest. But, it is also very real. Football comes with a "culture."

We must be cautious here. We should not fall into the trap of stereotyping athletes and their sports. After all, not all hockey players have anger problems (only a few), not all rugby guys are alcoholics (only some) and not all baseball players chew (only most).

Full op/ed piece here: http://clubs.calvin.edu/chimes/article.php?id=12599

A later quote leads me to believe he's never been to a hockey game at the Jolly Roger:

Football "culture," at least in its ideal, involves rowdy, wildly-excited fans. This sort of thing naturally lends itself to a little bit of chaos, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It only becomes a bad thing when Campus Safety can't handle the crowd control.

I guarantee a Calvin football crowd will never be anything like a hockey crowd when it comes to rowdiness. You really think that bottle contains the product its label represents?

The injury argument holds no water--we have a Women's Club Rugby team, for heaven's sake!

And I agree-Reform the "culture" if you think it is unhealthy or ungodly.

[KnightSlappy]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

I put up my take on op/ed piece on the blog.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvin-football-deciding-is-biggest.html

[Gregory Sager]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

I put up my take on op/ed piece on the blog.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvin-football-deciding-is-biggest.html

Nice skewering of a pretty shallow student editorial, O Dean. There may be compelling arguments against establishing football at Calvin, but Griffin Jackson certainly didn't offer them ... or, at least, he didn't offer them very well.

My favorite line in the editorial was, "I like football. A lot of people do. Some say it's the new American pastime." I always love it when a twenty-year-old writer quotes a forty-year-old cliche.

[Ralph Turner]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

I put up my take on op/ed piece on the blog.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvin-football-deciding-is-biggest.html

+1!  KS

Football would be another opportunity to beat Hope!  Go for it!

And while you are at it, so that guy the attendance figures for D-III in all sports.  He has no perspective of how well the Calvin community supports it college.

[Dark Knight]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

I put up my take on op/ed piece on the blog.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvin-football-deciding-is-biggest.html

+1!  KS

Football would be another opportunity to beat Hope!  Go for it!

And while you are at it, so that guy the attendance figures for D-III in all sports.  He has no perspective of how well the Calvin community supports it college.

Ah, but he does have a perspective -- the look down I-96 toward Holland...

[oldknight]

ziggy - interesting read, thanks for the link.  I posted the link on the MIAA football board.  Should be interesting to hear what the football posters think.


GK - what, I can't hear you - are you mooted!

I put up my take on op/ed piece on the blog.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2011/05/calvin-football-deciding-is-biggest.html

+1!  KS

Football would be another opportunity to beat Hope!  Go for it!

And while you are at it, so that guy the attendance figures for D-III in all sports.  He has no perspective of how well the Calvin community supports it college.

Ah, but he does have a perspective -- the look down I-96 toward Holland...

The perspective is even better if he looks down I-196.

[oldknight]

One of the advantages of living through more than one generation is having the opportunity to experience similar weak arguments one thought had been retired long ago. I'm old enough to remember when none of the traditional feeder schools to Calvin had football. Going by dim memory, GR South Christian was the first local Christian high school to get football followed soon after by GR Christian (actually Central Christian and East Christian). At the time some "conservatives" objected to football (that included my parents) because they feared the "change in culture" that would flow from the acquisition of football as well as the violence of the sport. The Chimes writer doesn't express concerns exactly as I remember them when I was a kid, but his aren't all that different either--and no more persuasive. It's surprising that in today's world, with pretty much every student at Knollcrest having attended a high school with football, there would be much objection to starting the sport at Calvin. Right now, if a high school student is capable of and interested in playing D3 football, Calvin is simply not an option. My son was a good enough high school football player to get more than one recruiting letter from Dean Kreps (imagine the sight of oldknight in the Hope cheering section at Holland Stadium--yikes!). If Calvin had football available I can't say he would have become a Knight but I think he would have considered it, especially if I could have lined him up with a quality professor from the computer science department. My son recently expressed what I interpreted as regret for not having pursued that avenue. The availability of football might have been enough to bring him to the East Beltline.

[gohope]

WHAT A FINISH!!!

Congratulations to both the Men's and Women's Sports Teams at Hope College!   


Hope Edges Calvin for MIAA Commissioner's Cup
For the 11th consecutive year, Hope College has won the MIAA Commissioner's Cup, an award based on the cumulative performance of each member school in the league's 18 sports for men and women.
Hope won the Commissioner's Cup with a total score of 206 points, while Calvin finished second with 202 points. Hope outscored Calvin 112-106 in the nine MIAA women's sports, while Calvin edged Hope 96-94 in the nine MIAA men's sports.

The final Commissioner's Cup standings are determined on the basis of each college's standings in eight of nine sports for men and eight of nine sports for women.

The Commissioner's Cup (All-Sports Award) has been presented since 1934-35. Hope has won the award 33 times, followed by Albion 14, Kalamazoo 13, Calvin 9 and Alma 5.

Commissioner's Cup Scores: 1. Hope 206. 2. Calvin 202. 3. Albion 132. 4. Adrian 125. 5. Alma 113. 6. Kalamazoo 98. 7. Olivet 95. 8. Trine 91.

Men's All-Sports Standings: 1. Calvin 96. 2. Hope 94. 3. Adrian 66. 4. Albion 61. 5. Trine 52. 6. Kalamazoo 47. 7. Alma 41. 8. Olivet 37.

Women's All-Sports Standings: 1. Hope 112. 2. Calvin 106. 3. Alma 72. 4. Albion 71. 5. Saint Mary's 69. 6. Adrian 59. 7. Olivet 58. 8. Kalamazoo 51. 9. Trine 39.

[ziggy]

WHAT A FINISH!!!

Congratulations to both the Men's and Women's Sports Teams at Hope College!   


Hope Edges Calvin for MIAA Commissioner's Cup
For the 11th consecutive year, Hope College has won the MIAA Commissioner's Cup, an award based on the cumulative performance of each member school in the league's 18 sports for men and women.
Hope won the Commissioner's Cup with a total score of 206 points, while Calvin finished second with 202 points. Hope outscored Calvin 112-106 in the nine MIAA women's sports, while Calvin edged Hope 96-94 in the nine MIAA men's sports.

The final Commissioner's Cup standings are determined on the basis of each college's standings in eight of nine sports for men and eight of nine sports for women.

The Commissioner's Cup (All-Sports Award) has been presented since 1934-35. Hope has won the award 33 times, followed by Albion 14, Kalamazoo 13, Calvin 9 and Alma 5.

Commissioner's Cup Scores: 1. Hope 206. 2. Calvin 202. 3. Albion 132. 4. Adrian 125. 5. Alma 113. 6. Kalamazoo 98. 7. Olivet 95. 8. Trine 91.

Men's All-Sports Standings: 1. Calvin 96. 2. Hope 94. 3. Adrian 66. 4. Albion 61. 5. Trine 52. 6. Kalamazoo 47. 7. Alma 41. 8. Olivet 37.

Women's All-Sports Standings: 1. Hope 112. 2. Calvin 106. 3. Alma 72. 4. Albion 71. 5. Saint Mary's 69. 6. Adrian 59. 7. Olivet 58. 8. Kalamazoo 51. 9. Trine 39.

It seems as though this past year's Calvin softball clinic was not a success. The high schoolers that participated apparently couldn't team the Knights enough to put them in a position to more adequately contribute to the college's commissioner cup race.

[Dark Knight]

WHAT A FINISH!!!

Congratulations to both the Men's and Women's Sports Teams at Hope College!   


Hope Edges Calvin for MIAA Commissioner's Cup
For the 11th consecutive year, Hope College has won the MIAA Commissioner's Cup, an award based on the cumulative performance of each member school in the league's 18 sports for men and women.
Hope won the Commissioner's Cup with a total score of 206 points, while Calvin finished second with 202 points. Hope outscored Calvin 112-106 in the nine MIAA women's sports, while Calvin edged Hope 96-94 in the nine MIAA men's sports.

The final Commissioner's Cup standings are determined on the basis of each college's standings in eight of nine sports for men and eight of nine sports for women.

The Commissioner's Cup (All-Sports Award) has been presented since 1934-35. Hope has won the award 33 times, followed by Albion 14, Kalamazoo 13, Calvin 9 and Alma 5.

Commissioner's Cup Scores: 1. Hope 206. 2. Calvin 202. 3. Albion 132. 4. Adrian 125. 5. Alma 113. 6. Kalamazoo 98. 7. Olivet 95. 8. Trine 91.

Men's All-Sports Standings: 1. Calvin 96. 2. Hope 94. 3. Adrian 66. 4. Albion 61. 5. Trine 52. 6. Kalamazoo 47. 7. Alma 41. 8. Olivet 37.

Women's All-Sports Standings: 1. Hope 112. 2. Calvin 106. 3. Alma 72. 4. Albion 71. 5. Saint Mary's 69. 6. Adrian 59. 7. Olivet 58. 8. Kalamazoo 51. 9. Trine 39.

Curiously, Calvin had five solo first-place finishes while Hope had only one. I guess Hope had more consistency and Calvin had more excellence.

If Calvin had been able to drop their lowest result as Hope does, they'd have had the same average as Hope...

[Happy Calvin Guy]

If Calvin had been able to drop their lowest result as Hope does, they'd have had the same average as Hope...

Yet another reason for the Knights to trot out a mediocre squad to the gridiron......I knew there was an intersection of these two topics. 

[Happy Calvin Guy]

On the national level, the Learfield Cup standings through end of winter sports:

http://thedirectorscup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/DIII-Complete-Release-for-March-311.pdf

Calvin #4, Hope #41

I haven't kept a real close eye on things in the spring season, but possible points for Calvin in men's golf and track&field?

[Dark Knight]

On the national level, the Learfield Cup standings through end of winter sports:

http://thedirectorscup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/DIII-Complete-Release-for-March-311.pdf

Calvin #4, Hope #41

I haven't kept a real close eye on things in the spring season, but possible points for Calvin in men's golf and track&field?

Calvin is currently in 4th place with 599.75 points. Williams leads with 719.5 points.

Golf is currently in 34th place, which would be good for about 30 points. The outdoor track and field teams are sending several athletes to nationals, so we'll probably pick up some points there too. (The indoor track and field teams finished 8th and 11th for a total of 134 points.)

To catch up with the Williamses of the world, we're going to need not only football but also fencing, skiing, M&W ice hockey, . . .