FB: Midwest Conference

[The Roop]

He makes a good point scottie as I won't be able to watch the game this week. So I need you to text me score updates.

[PC]

I cannot comment really. But I heard they require a 31 or 32 minimum. If that applies to ALL students that attend Grinnell, I believe it probably is the toughest standards in the conference. But I have no detail knowledge of any except one.

With respect to admission requirements at Grinnell College, the average student martriculated into Grinnell's student body has an ACT score of 31 with the middle 50% (which runs from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of those attending) ranging from an ACT score of 29-33.  Yes, all athletes who compete for the Pioneers of Grinnell College are extremely bright and intelligent academically.  As a result, it is not easy to recruit athletically at Grinnell College when your football players typically fall within those ranges mentioned above.  Never the less, Coach Hawsey's and the Pioneer football team's success depends on him attracting those student/athletes that fit within that academic profile and his "football" profile, too.

As far as recruiting at Grinnell goes, it is very difficult to obtain basketball point guards and post players with the academic background to martriculate successfully at the college as well and who can play the game well, too.  I have been told specifically by the basketball coaches at the college that those positions are by far the hardest to recruit for (boys and girls equally so).

So, yes, athletic success is not easy to attain at Grinnell College.  However, Coach Hawsey, Coach Arseneault (men's basketball coach), and Coach Gluckman (women's basketball coach) have each been challenged to attain team success or continue to earn team success despite the academic hurdles.  Coach A has done it over time and continues to be successful while Coach Hawsey is showing signs of football improvement.  I believe observers of the MWC will see that Coach Gluckman has put together two very solid recruiting classes for the women's basketball team in the weeks ahead and that the Lady Pioneers will be vastly improved this winter as well.

I don't disagree with your assertion that recruiting for Grinnell sports has its hurdles. But Grinnell's high entrance requirements hardly fall to the level of an excuse. Just take a look at the success of schools from the UAA and NESCAC, all of whom have similar entrance requirements to Grinnell's, in a wide variety of D3 sports. I doubt that the basketball programs at Williams and Wash U draw a lot of sympathy from anyone for their difficulties in getting good players into the program, since both of them have won national championships in this decade. And Williams, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western Reserve have certainly not faltered on the gridiron due to an inability to corral good football players.

Most of the people from UAA and NESCAC schools, in fact, will freely admit that the high entrance standards of their schools are in many ways advantageous to athletics rather than a burden. High school student-athletes who are smart enough to get high ACT or SAT scores will also be smart enough to realize that a degree from a school that has a high level of academic cachet outweighs most other considerations, if not all of them.

The sage has spoken...  One additional thought-- it just might be a little easier to recruit to a school in a major metro area like the UAA schools than to the cornfields of Iowa, which only have a draw for cross country runners.  And it also may be easier to sell those conferences as they are truely acedemic conferences and carry some prestege nationwide, while the MWC tries to attain this, they, in reality, are basically a Midwest conference.  But in the end all schools and conferences have their own recruiting hurdles and any school can be successful given the resourses to make their program competative.

[The Roop]

Resourses for a truely competative english department would increase the acedemic prestege as well.

[bballer1280]

I cannot comment really. But I heard they require a 31 or 32 minimum. If that applies to ALL students that attend Grinnell, I believe it probably is the toughest standards in the conference. But I have no detail knowledge of any except one.

With respect to admission requirements at Grinnell College, the average student martriculated into Grinnell's student body has an ACT score of 31 with the middle 50% (which runs from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of those attending) ranging from an ACT score of 29-33.  Yes, all athletes who compete for the Pioneers of Grinnell College are extremely bright and intelligent academically.  As a result, it is not easy to recruit athletically at Grinnell College when your football players typically fall within those ranges mentioned above.  Never the less, Coach Hawsey's and the Pioneer football team's success depends on him attracting those student/athletes that fit within that academic profile and his "football" profile, too.

As far as recruiting at Grinnell goes, it is very difficult to obtain basketball point guards and post players with the academic background to martriculate successfully at the college as well and who can play the game well, too.  I have been told specifically by the basketball coaches at the college that those positions are by far the hardest to recruit for (boys and girls equally so).

So, yes, athletic success is not easy to attain at Grinnell College.  However, Coach Hawsey, Coach Arseneault (men's basketball coach), and Coach Gluckman (women's basketball coach) have each been challenged to attain team success or continue to earn team success despite the academic hurdles.  Coach A has done it over time and continues to be successful while Coach Hawsey is showing signs of football improvement.  I believe observers of the MWC will see that Coach Gluckman has put together two very solid recruiting classes for the women's basketball team in the weeks ahead and that the Lady Pioneers will be vastly improved this winter as well.

I don't disagree with your assertion that recruiting for Grinnell sports has its hurdles. But Grinnell's high entrance requirements hardly fall to the level of an excuse. Just take a look at the success of schools from the UAA and NESCAC, all of whom have similar entrance requirements to Grinnell's, in a wide variety of D3 sports. I doubt that the basketball programs at Williams and Wash U draw a lot of sympathy from anyone for their difficulties in getting good players into the program, since both of them have won national championships in this decade. And Williams, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western Reserve have certainly not faltered on the gridiron due to an inability to corral good football players.

Most of the people from UAA and NESCAC schools, in fact, will freely admit that the high entrance standards of their schools are in many ways advantageous to athletics rather than a burden. High school student-athletes who are smart enough to get high ACT or SAT scores will also be smart enough to realize that a degree from a school that has a high level of academic cachet outweighs most other considerations, if not all of them.

You do make some very good and reasonably valid points in your arguement above.  I am very certain that schools from the UAA and the NESCAC will not by sympathetic to the "trials and tribulations" of Grinnell College's difficulty in recruiting outstanding students with athletic talent as well.  Nor, does anyone from Grinnell want the sympathy.  In the end, earning athletic success at outstanding colleges and universities academically is a goal that has different levels of success.  Measuring success merely by the number of national championships is the highest hurdle of success to cross.  But, success can be measured at the conference and regional level.  For Grinnell College, conference and regional athletic success is the reasonable goal to reach now.

Additionally, I would point out that none of the colleges noted above, to my knowledge, from the UAA or the NESCAC are located in a town of 9,000 people surrounded literally by corn fields and beef cattle with the nearest retail strip mall over 30 miles away.  Although students who come to Grinnell College find the institution to be very charming and an unbelievable place to spend four years of college, the number of potential students that really "release themselves" to the concept of leaving metropolitan and/or cosmopolitan locations limits the recruiting process considerably.  So, as a result, a comparison to universities from the UAA and the NESCAC to Grinnell College is really not an "apples to apples" comparison.  Don't you agree?

[Gregory Sager]

I cannot comment really. But I heard they require a 31 or 32 minimum. If that applies to ALL students that attend Grinnell, I believe it probably is the toughest standards in the conference. But I have no detail knowledge of any except one.

With respect to admission requirements at Grinnell College, the average student martriculated into Grinnell's student body has an ACT score of 31 with the middle 50% (which runs from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of those attending) ranging from an ACT score of 29-33.  Yes, all athletes who compete for the Pioneers of Grinnell College are extremely bright and intelligent academically.  As a result, it is not easy to recruit athletically at Grinnell College when your football players typically fall within those ranges mentioned above.  Never the less, Coach Hawsey's and the Pioneer football team's success depends on him attracting those student/athletes that fit within that academic profile and his "football" profile, too.

As far as recruiting at Grinnell goes, it is very difficult to obtain basketball point guards and post players with the academic background to martriculate successfully at the college as well and who can play the game well, too.  I have been told specifically by the basketball coaches at the college that those positions are by far the hardest to recruit for (boys and girls equally so).

So, yes, athletic success is not easy to attain at Grinnell College.  However, Coach Hawsey, Coach Arseneault (men's basketball coach), and Coach Gluckman (women's basketball coach) have each been challenged to attain team success or continue to earn team success despite the academic hurdles.  Coach A has done it over time and continues to be successful while Coach Hawsey is showing signs of football improvement.  I believe observers of the MWC will see that Coach Gluckman has put together two very solid recruiting classes for the women's basketball team in the weeks ahead and that the Lady Pioneers will be vastly improved this winter as well.

I don't disagree with your assertion that recruiting for Grinnell sports has its hurdles. But Grinnell's high entrance requirements hardly fall to the level of an excuse. Just take a look at the success of schools from the UAA and NESCAC, all of whom have similar entrance requirements to Grinnell's, in a wide variety of D3 sports. I doubt that the basketball programs at Williams and Wash U draw a lot of sympathy from anyone for their difficulties in getting good players into the program, since both of them have won national championships in this decade. And Williams, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western Reserve have certainly not faltered on the gridiron due to an inability to corral good football players.

Most of the people from UAA and NESCAC schools, in fact, will freely admit that the high entrance standards of their schools are in many ways advantageous to athletics rather than a burden. High school student-athletes who are smart enough to get high ACT or SAT scores will also be smart enough to realize that a degree from a school that has a high level of academic cachet outweighs most other considerations, if not all of them.

You do make some very good and reasonably valid points in your arguement above.  I am very certain that schools from the UAA and the NESCAC will not by sympathetic to the "trials and tribulations" of Grinnell College's difficulty in recruiting outstanding students with athletic talent as well.  Nor, does anyone from Grinnell want the sympathy.  In the end, earning athletic success at outstanding colleges and universities academically is a goal that has different levels of success.  Measuring success merely by the number of national championships is the highest hurdle of success to cross.  But, success can be measured at the conference and regional level.  For Grinnell College, conference and regional athletic success is the reasonable goal to reach now.

Additionally, I would point out that none of the colleges noted above, to my knowledge, from the UAA or the NESCAC are located in a town of 9,000 people surrounded literally by corn fields and beef cattle with the nearest retail strip mall over 30 miles away.  Although students who come to Grinnell College find the institution to be very charming and an unbelievable place to spend four years of college, the number of potential students that really "release themselves" to the concept of leaving metropolitan and/or cosmopolitan locations limits the recruiting process considerably.  So, as a result, a comparison to universities from the UAA and the NESCAC to Grinnell College is really not an "apples to apples" comparison.  Don't you agree?

Yes, I do. Both you and PC explicitly made a point to which I was alluding when I said in my first post, "I don't disagree with your assertion that recruiting for Grinnell sports has its hurdles." It's one thing to recruit for a school located in or near a big city (i.e., all of the UAA schools) or for a school located in a small New England town that's comparatively close to New York City and/or Boston (i.e., most of the NESCAC schools), and it's quite another to recruit for Grinnell, which is located in Nowheresville, Iowa and is an hour's drive from the nearest modest-sized city, Des Moines. Grinnell's location is probably a drawback for some prospects, both athletes and general-population students.

I also agree with PC's point that some of the cachet of attending a UAA or NESCAC school comes from the conference itself, a cachet to which the MWC (and thus Grinnell) can lay no claim. Both the UAA and NESCAC tend to play various sports at a higher level than does the MWC (or at least they do in the major sports), and the leagues themselves are nationally known for their collective academic prestige in a way that the MWC isn't.

Having said all that, it's apparent that Grinnell attempts to recruit and construct its various sports rosters nationally, in the same manner as do the UAA and NESCAC schools (and a few other schools, such as Wheaton, Carleton, and Macalester) and unlike its MWC peers, so the school is obviously devoting the resources necessary to recruit in that manner.

My point was simply that the high admissions standards of Grinnell by themselves do not present a sufficient obstacle to be seen as an excuse for the school's shortcomings (real or perceived) on the field of play, since other schools have not only succeeded on a national level with similar high admissions standards but in some ways have come to see those standards as an advantage rather than an obstacle.

[larry_u]

Average Number of Losses per season since 1999 (Championships in () )

1. St. Norbert 0.5 (8)
2. Monmouth 2.5 (2)
    Ripon 2.5 (1)
4. Lake Forest 3.9 (1)
5. Carroll 5.0
6. Illinois College 5.2
7. Grinnell 5.7
    Beloit 5.7
9. Knox 6.6
10. Lawrence 6.9
Does knox/beloit/lawrence have academic recruiting hurdles?  Most likely not?, so its just showing the recent trend in the MWC, and wont limit Grinnell to see success they saw in the early 90's.  Just my thoughts.  Interesting when you look at the top 4 as the only to win a championship

However, I think you can pretty much ask anyone and realize the last 4 teams on that list are by far the best 4 academic institutions in the MWC, so there definitely is a trend....

[Redmen09]

Success in football corelates to academic acceptance standards, not neccessarily academic prestige i think.  The top half of teams on the list seem to have the most bodies on the sidelines, resulting in more depth, which to me results in more success

[janesvilleflash]

The 100 player roster limits in the WIAC tend to say differently.

[Redmen09]

Its different in the MWC though and there is a large difference in roster sizes between teams.  With the smaller rosters being the schools that are the top academic schools.  Atleast smaller rosters being an observation from my point of view seeing games for that last five or so years

[MWCfan787]

In my mind acceptance standards are so deceiving in telling how good of an education you actually get and how well a school prepares you for the future.

While schools like grinnell, knox, and lawrence are harder to get into, I think all the schools in the conf. can boast about equally in respect to successful and accomplished alumni.  Isn't that the final goal?

[Jester76]

The 100 player roster limits in the WIAC tend to say differently.

The hundred man roster only helps the WIAC schools to cut out the players that cannot hack it and helps keep the quality of the program high.  They more than likely have cuts.  And if they do then the competition brings out the best in the players they keep.

[peteSNCFan]

The 100 player roster limits in the WIAC tend to say differently.

The hundred man roster only helps the WIAC schools to cut out the players that cannot hack it and helps keep the quality of the program high.  They more than likely have cuts.  And if they do then the competition brings out the best in the players they keep.

They do cut players in the WIAC...my neighbors son got cut @ Eau Claire, prior to this season.

[SNCOLDAD]

A couple questions / comments

1. Does the roster limitation apply to Varsity? If so they can have all they want on a JV or Red shirt team?
2. MWC does NOT have spring football. How much does that affect success?

I also agree that there are plenty of good athletes that score high in ACT. So I agree that is not the reason for some football programs not doing as well as others. I also agree that a good higher education is not just based on academic standards to get in. I am also not so sure about some of the schools listed as the higher academic schools and leaving out others.

[janesvilleflash]

WIAC can have 100 total in the entire program. The JV is made up from players in that 100. There are no red shirts allowed.

[basil991]

How about some thoughts and predictions for this weekend?