Marc Daalder April 2, 2017 AC Voice Investigations, Amherst College Losses, News, Politics, Race, Sports

The State of Athletics

Long before the Indicator released a shocking report exposing, in great detail, misogynistic and racist remarks made by members of the Amherst cross country team, the faculty was up in arms about athletics at Amherst.

A new report on athletics commissioned by the College had just been released to the faculty. It was not originally scheduled to be discussed in any meeting but, after much protest, the matter came up for debate on December 6, when a number of faculty members lodged their complaints with the issues identified by the report, as well as with the report itself. By the end, according to Professor Dwaipayan Sen, the faculty had come to “a general, emerging consensus that something needs to be done.”

In January, in the midst of student protests over immigration issues, the administration released the report to the general public overnight. Perhaps they hoped it would be lost in the chaos of the moment, or perhaps this was just when they had planned to publish the report.

Now, two months later, as reports spread on social media of more disrespect from student-athletes in Valentine Dining Hall, Seligman Dormitory, and elsewhere on campus, AC Voice is releasing its critical analysis of “The Place of Athletics at Amherst College,” hereafter referred to as the Athletics Report.

When asked for general comment on the report, President Biddy Martin said, “Athletics has long been part of the fabric of Amherst and has contributed positively to our overall educational mission. As college athletics ramps up across divisions and institutions, it is important that our athletics programs remain consistent with our core mission and avoid the trend in other divisions and leagues to become a domain apart.”

Background

The Athletics Report (which can be found here) is in fact a follow-up to another report on Amherst’s athletics colloquially known as the Diver Report (which can be found here), which surveyed the state of athletics from the late 1990s into the early 2000s and was released in 2002. When the committee that would write the new Athletics Report was announced, AC Voice ran a piece analyzing the old Diver Report which argued that “it might be one of the most important documents written about the College in the past fifteen years.”

Specifically, the study found that, on average, varsity athletes performed significantly worse academically in relation to their non-varsity peers. While GPAs only differed by a letter grade (e.g. B+ vs. B), class ranks differed by 13 to 16 percent, depending on whether the sport was “high profile” (football, basketball, and hockey) or not.

Additionally, varsity athletics teams were significantly less racially and socioeconomically diverse than the rest of the student body (in 1999 only 6 percent of athletes received significant amounts of financial aid, compared with 17 percent of non-athletes). There are also some strange stats—data showed that sophomore football players spent 78 percent of their free time with other football players—along with less exotic figures that more or less support the notion of a social divide between athletes and non-athletes.

Also worthy of your concern: According to the report, in 2002, the Admissions Office expressly set aside 66 “slots” for athletic recruits, meaning that those spots are reserved for applicants on the basis of athletic merit. Sources privy to this information tell me number remains the same today. When less than 15 percent of applicants ever receive offers of admission, that’s a pretty big deal. Moreover, the report suggests that recruits, on average, have significantly lower academic credentials too: For the class of 2005, the median verbal and math SAT scores for male athletes “highly rated in the high-profile [i.e. football, basketball, hockey] sports” were 90 and 40 points, respectively, below the median scores of their male non-athlete peers. The gap was smaller for women and male athletes on non-high-profile teams, but still present. Obviously SAT scores are highly imperfect indicators of academic aptitude and intelligence, but the message is clear: the College bends its standards for athletic recruits.

The Athletics Report was commissioned as a follow up to the Diver Report, to see whether its recommendations had been followed and whether some of the poor statistics noted in the report had improved in the intervening decade. In her email announcing the creation of the committee, President Martin wrote that “There is a report that was done in the early 2000’s that was supposed to be updated every five years, but has never been revisited.”

When asked whether the report would be revisited in the future, Martin said, “The role of athletics is important to the College and it is our intention to review it on a regular basis. We are currently considering recommendations from the recent report.”

It took two years from President Martin’s announcement of the report in October 2014 until the faculty received a draft. According to a number of faculty members that AC Voice spoke with, the report was not originally slated to be discussed by the faculty. In a faculty meeting on November 1, Professor Jessica Reyes insisted that the report be reviewed in a future meeting.

During that future meeting, the report was “discussed for an hour, at which point some kind of consensus did arise. A lot of people did speak and shared a number of concerns and questions about the report,” according to Professor Reyes.

AC Voice received conflicting information about whether the report was intended to be released. AAS senators who were briefed on the report claim they were told that it would “never see the light of day.” Some professors said they did not think it would be released, while others told AC Voice that once identifying information was edited out of the report it would be released. It is unclear whether the report that was made public was the exact same version as the one read by the faculty, or if certain changes or redactions had been made.

Asked after the release of the report, President Martin said that the report was always intended to be released “to the entire Amherst community.” She also added that “The report that the faculty received in late October was not changed at all on any points of substance.”

Athletics Intensification

One of the primary concerns of the original Diver Report was the way in which athletics had intensified in previous decades. These worries mostly focused on the growth of team sizes and the addition of new teams, as well as a greater emphasis on and dedication of resources to winning matches.

Indeed, Amherst’s teams have grown better in recent years, and the prospect of winning matches is seen as justification on its own for increased resources. Professor Reyes noted that “We didn’t always have winning teams, and alumni were still really happy to come to Homecoming even when the football team was losing.”

The Athletics Report uncovered that “the athletic experience has become more intense, and requires a great commitment of the athletes due to post-season play and out-of-season practices.” It also stressed, however, that Amherst’s membership in NESCAC “buffer[s] it from the worst practices within the larger NCAA universe.”

Furthermore, as Amherst’s student body grew about 10% between the publication of the Diver Report and the Athletics Report, the number of students on athletics teams swelled by 12%. Reyes says, “When we added new dorms and expanded the size of the student body, one possible opportunity that might have provided was to keep the number of athletes and reduce the percentage. We’re fielding the same number of teams, why should we need more people? We didn’t do that.”

This means that an estimated 35-38% of the student body participates on varsity athletics teams, as compared to 27% when the Diver Report was published. In part due to this, the Athletics Report “recommends that there should be no further increase in the number of varsity athletes or varsity teams, even if the Amherst college student body increases in the future.”

The report also noted that according to the Department of Athletics, the reason some team sizes have swelled is “the frequency of injuries in these sports.” Furthermore, the increase of numbers of athletes was relatively gender-balanced, meaning the preexisting gender inequities from a decade ago were not redressed when the opportunity was provided.

Athletes’ Academics and Health

One of the key issues of the report is the effects of athletics on the athletes themselves. The Athletics Report devotes a large amount of space and resources to athletes’ academics and health.

In the academic sphere, the report concludes that “participation in athletics does not compromise the ability of athletes to excel academically at Amherst.” Athletes do tend to group in certain majors, being twice as likely as non-athletes to study economics. Students in men’s basketball, baseball, football, and lacrosse represent a third of economics majors, almost 40% of political science majors, and almost 30% of history majors.

Furthermore, athletes are much less likely to concentrate in scientific fields which require extra hours in labs and seminars. The report also notes that “one of the most striking academic differences between athletes and non-athletes” is that “athletic factor” athletes wrote a senior thesis only 16% of the time, as compared to 49% of the time for non-athletes. Nonetheless, the academic experience for athletes doesn’t seem to be significantly impaired by their participation in athletics.

However, there is a significant amount of information regarding the admissions of athletics that deserves further examination.

The report distinguishes between three groups of athletes – “athletic factor” athletes, “coded” athletes, and “walk-on” athletes. The former are prospective students identified by coaches as athletes who would significantly aid the “success of the teams.” NESCAC regulates the number of athletic factor athletes that members can admit – for Amherst, that number is currently 67.

Coded athletes are students who excel at academics but whose admission is aided by their athletic prowess. They “are admitted at a much higher rate than the general admission rate” for students with their academic scores.

Walk-on athletes are admitted without any recommendation from coaches and successfully try out for their teams, but generally drop the sport after their first year.

The report concludes that, for athletic factor athletes particularly, “the benefit at the time of admission […] is substantial.” Furthermore, it notes that the Athletics Department has an outsized impact on admissions, influencing the admissions of 27-33% of the students in the Classes of 2010-2016. Faculty members often told the report’s authors that they were concerned the “college pays an opportunity cost for having such a significant fraction of the student body engaged in a single extra-curricular activity.”

Aside from athlete academics and admissions, there is the key question of the health and safety of athletes. The report explores this issue in great detail, focusing particularly on the question of concussions.

The committee declined to voice an opinion on the Athletics Department’s head injury protocol due to a lack of expertise, and recommended that outside medical experts review the system instead. However, they also questioned “whether students who have received 3 concussions should ever be allowed to resume play” (emphasis in original). It is not clear how many times this event occurred.

Throughout the report, the authors stress that there is not yet a consensus or “comprehensive research on the nature and long-term consequences of concussions and sub-concussive injuries.” They recommend a panel of medical experts be convened to develop new practices. The three sports of greatest concern are football, lacrosse, and rugby – the latter being a club sport.

It struck many faculty members and other community members that an academic institution would sponsor sports with a high risk of concussions which, among other things, increase the likelihood of impairing mental faculties.

The Athlete/Non-Athlete Divide

Perhaps of greatest interest to the study body is the issue of the athlete/non-athlete divide, in terms of demographics, social status, and even politics. The report generally declines to admit the existence of this divide, instead preferring to refer to “perceptions” or “senses” of a divide. Nonetheless, there is substantial evidence presented to back up the notion that athletes and non-athletes tend to form two different communities on campus.

Key among this evidence is the racial and socioeconomic demographics that the report provides. While conventional knowledge would indicate that sports at colleges can be used to diversify the student population, the opposite occurs at Amherst. Where the student body as a whole is only 47% white, 73% of male athletes and 74% of female athletes are white. This means that only 35% of non-athletes are white – the establishment of different communities is apparent almost from the start.

Similarly, on men’s and women’s teams only 4% and 2% of athletes are first generation students, while 15% of the student body is. And only 6% and 2% are low income, as compared to 23% of the student body. There are also smaller but still significant gaps in terms of international students.

The report notes that this lack of diversity is not uniform across all sports and genders. Tennis teams are more diverse than other teams, and the men’s soccer team “has a roster in which students of color and white students are equally represented.”

The report recommends that coaching staff adopt new strategies and be provided with extra incentives for recruiting a more diverse set of athletes. At the same time, however, it argues that “the coaching staff faces certain external challenges in recruiting diverse athletes” – namely, that athletics as an institution in the United States is inherently racially and socioeconomically homogenous. Athletics “‘advantage[s] the advantaged’, and make it harder for students from low income backgrounds to compete successfully for places on college rosters.”

Furthermore, the report goes on to note that the coaching staff also lacks diversity. This was a significant concern voiced by Professor Sen, who told AC Voice that “I think the coaching staff is something that doesn’t get as much attention as it might.”

Another issue worth considering, which intersects with the issue of demographics, is housing patterns. The report writes that “direct evidence for a separation between athletes and non-athletes can be found in the housing patterns of male athletes, who cluster in the ‘social dorms.’” In 2014, 85% and 80% of the residents in Pond and Stone dormitories were athletes.

Now that the socials are gone, however, the report appears to consider this issue roughly settled. “With room draw for 2016 just concluded, there is very encouraging evidence that students have indeed redistributed much more broadly throughout the campus.”

However, an AC Voice investigation found that there were numerous reports of students paying one another to switch rooms, particularly to conform to old housing patterns like those mentioned in the report. Two current football team members confirmed to AC Voice that both football players and non-athletes paid to switch rooms in and out of Hitchcock dormitory, where 28% of non-first year football players currently live.

When asked about this issue in December, Director of Residential Life Corry Colonna told AC Voice that “We recently learned of the alleged room swap situation and will investigate the allegations further. We were a little more permissive with regards to moves than in the past with the change in culture that would undoubtedly happen with the loss of Crossett, Coolidge, Pond, and Stone. It is our intention that students select spaces during room draw and must stay in their selected spaces moving forward.”

Residential Life did not respond to a request for further comment by press time.

Give that sports teams, including the football team, tend to be largely racially homogenous, efforts to subvert the room draw system and group together could be seen as aping the patterns of housing segregation, wherein wealthy white athletes gather in some dorms while the rest of the student body lives elsewhere.

In order to address the “perceived” athlete/non-athlete divide, the Athletics Report issued a number of recommendations. It cautioned against further intensification of athletics and even noted the possibility of reducing the number of varsity athletes “by eliminating some sports.”

It also recommended that administrators and student leaders “ensure that student living environments […] provide for good and healthy mixing of students.” Increasing the diversity of teams and coaching staffs also ranked highly among their recommendations.

Nonetheless, the report’s refusal to acknowledge a social divide and recommend more forceful methods for addressing this divide is disappointing. The divide manifests itself in numerous ways, from microaggressions to more explicit and violent ways, such as the cross country team scandal.

Speaking about the athlete/non-athlete divide just after the Indicator story broke in December, Professor Sen said, “That’s incredibly disturbing to me. I shudder to imagine what the actual microtexture of interactions are, within the dormitories, within the classroom, in the library or social settings.”

The Elephant in the Room

In 2013, Professor Dumm wrote an article in the Amherst Student that soon went viral – at least in Amherst terms. The article was published in the midst of the College’s sexual assault scandal, and argued that there was an elephant in the room that the Special Oversight Committee on Sexual Misconduct at Amherst was ignoring: the role of athletics in sexual assault.

There is far too much anecdotal evidence from Amherst students themselves that tells of an athletic culture that encourages misogny and homophobia and that discourages victims of sexual assault from reporting such acts for fear of ostracism by their peers. Why is it that, instead of being curious about this question, which is warranted not only by existing scholarly studies and by student anecdote alike, the committee instead criticized as “stereotyping” the very idea that one might be curious about this question?

Given the prominent role that team sports plays at Amherst, for a select committee assigned to address sexual violence to ignore athletics is very disappointing. The stated fear of stereotyping, or unfairly identifying a particular group for responsibility for sexual violence is a red herring. (This claim, by the way, is an implicit criticism of anyone who would even raise the issue, for they are seen as being prejudiced. Nothing is more detrimental to open discussion.) It is to turn away from the obvious need to have a critical examination of one of the most important extracurricular forces at our College, one that does so much to shape the character of so many of our students.

Neither the Diver Report nor the Athletics Report ventured into this territory. In her introduction to the report, President Martin writes that “for reasons of time, the committee was not asked to do a Title IX gender equity review.”

Martin told AC Voice that “The gender equity review I mentioned in my letter is underway. […] This gender equity review will not focus on sexual assault, but any information that emerges about sexual assault will be brought forward.”

The Athletics Report does briefly note that “athletes are not more prone to be cited for […] sexual assault,” though it provides no evidence to back up this assertion.

Professor Reyes told AC Voice that “One of the things that was disappointing to some faculty members about the [Athletics Report] is that it didn’t even go there. It didn’t try to ask that question because it’s seen as offensive to even ask it. But I think we do have reasons to be concerned.”

Research elsewhere indicates that athletics intensification can correlate with increased sexual assaults. A 1995 study found that male intercollegiate athletes committed 19% of all sexual violence cases across 30 Division 1 schools while representing on 3% of the population. A 2016 study confirmed that “male athletes had more traditional views of gender roles and had a higher affinity for rape myth acceptance than non-athletes” and that “student athletes engage in higher rates of sexual coercion than non-athletes.”

Furthermore, the way that athletic teams monopolize party life on campus, and the correlation between that and sexual assault, lead one to believe that this is a topic worth probing. Nonetheless, so long as the administration works to cover for the excesses of the College’s athletics program, that seems highly unlikely.

What Is to Be Done?

Despite the Athletics Report’s largely positive conclusions, a number of subsequent events indicate there are many problems still to be tackled. Chief among these was the cross country team scandal, which is indicative of a larger culture of toxic masculinity and implicit approval of sexual assault amongst men’s sports teams.

Even more recently, on March 25, student-athletes celebrating match victories entered Val while inebriated and launched a new, albeit much smaller, controversy. Some students have argued that the disruption was minimal, while others argued the opposite. From a number of reports, it appears that there may have been two separate incidents, an earlier one involving a women’s team and a later and greater disturbance with a men’s team. Claire Carpenter ’17 told AC Voice that she “didn’t experience any disruption beyond noticing that people were being louder than usual.”

Another student who wished to remain anonymous told AC Voice that “What stressed me out the most/struck me as a display of toxic masculinity was when they began pounding on the tables with their fists, which happened a couple times. It was really loud and anxiety-inducing to be honest.” These events have led to a new movement to “Decolonize Val” and break down some of the barriers that make up the athlete/non-athlete divide.

When asked about the issue, President Martin told AC Voice that “Student affairs is currently following up on the reports of inappropriate conduct at Valentine that you described. From what I know now, it seems there was behavior that does not meet community standards of decency and respect.”

On Saturday, reports circulated on social media of racist actions and words from members of the men’s basketball team at a party in Seligman Dormitory. When Campus Police were called, they gave party-goers a 30-minute grace period to shut the event down. The College did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Evidently, from demographics to housing, from sexual violence to concussions, there are a number of outstanding issues that the College must address. The recommendations in the Athletics Report are a start, but more is needed, and the College won’t even commit to enforcing all of those recommendations.

Rather, President Martin told AC Voice, the school has begun implementing some, such as room-draw amendments and more concussion research, but “For some of the other recommendations, we continue to work through their implications and are waiting for an ad hoc faculty committee and faculty governance groups to develop their responses.”

Beyond the report’s recommendations, there are a number of actions that should be taken. Most importantly, Amherst must immediately undertake a thorough review of the connections between athletics and sexual misconduct on campus.

It must also seek to dismantle the culture of toxic masculinity that pervades athletics at Amherst. This can be done through implementing more seminars and opportunities for discourse on this topic, through taking a more active role in chasing down instances of sexual violence, and through breaking up segregated social groups with a variety of measures.

That athletics has such an outsized impact on campus life and on admissions is untenable. Amherst’s primary focus should be education and enlightenment. There should not be 67 places in each class reserved for athletes who are predominantly white and male.

More important than the solutions proposed here is the need for a campus-wide discussion on this issue. We encourage the AAS to hold a town hall on athletics, and for students to form and moderate their own discourse on this problem. We at AC Voice don’t hold all the answers, and the only way to arrive at a fair solution is to work with athletes and non-athletes, faculty and coaches, and staff of all stripes.

32Comments

Add yours

1

David Dorwart on April 2, 2017 at 9:54 am
Reply

Having been involved in a dozen or so academic institutions over the past forty years many of the findings rather than surprising me reflect overall trends. I would like to see statistics regarding SATs and grades between Amherst’s men’s and women’s teams, as it has been my experience that women’s teams in general maintain higher academic levels, often equal if not better than the general student body. Not so with the men.
2

J on April 2, 2017 at 1:58 pm
Reply

This article is ridiculous–especially the part where you cite statistics from a report published 15 years ago as if they still apply today. Ignoring the fact that the “Decolonize Val” movement misappropriates anti-colonization language and trivializes those movements, people banging their fists on tables is not an example of “toxic masculinity”. It’s raucous behavior, sure, but part of functioning in the world as an adult is learning to deal with, say, loud unexpected noises! People engaging in behavior that you might find annoying or a little inconsiderate is not automatically something that has to be protested. If you’re feeling a large amount of anxiety from just these everyday situations, then maybe you should talk to someone at the counseling center. Which I highly recommend, because it’s a fantastic campus resource.
- 3
  
  Morgan on April 2, 2017 at 3:54 pm
  Reply
  
  The article had a lot more to say about that. How do you feel about the report eschewing any discussion of sexual violence? It’s not like people haven’t been calling for a report on exactly that. There’s literally no reason to avoid engaging in it other than institutional knowledge of a legitimate problem.
4

Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 3:58 pm
Reply

This is the most ridiculous article in the history of the universe. ACvoice should be embarrassed for publishing this.
5

Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 4:29 pm
Reply

A couple things to note:

1. As the first comment mentioned the demographics of athletes at Amherst are largely representative of an overall trend. The “state of athletics” at Amherst is more so the state of athletics at elite liberal schools. Thus, the claim which highlighted the irony of having an athletics department which works against diversity is not unique to Amherst or any other elite liberal arts school. That does not make it right but it is certainly not limited to Amherst. Similarly, many of the problems which are presented are not unique to Amherst but stem from having a small school with a high percentage of athletes. This divide is more pronounced by the sheer size of Amherst.

2. While I agree with some of the claims in the article about hyper-masculine behaviors predominant among male athletes I would stress that this type of one-sided criticism furthers the “divide.”

3. Many of the criticisms levied against the administration are a little bit naive. Unfortunately, the administration and Biddy does not act in a vacuum. The administration has to answer to students but also alumni(more specifically the Board of Trustees), who for better or worse are much less diverse than the current student body. Some of those alumni may have themselves been athletes. Thus, actions enforced by the administration which hamper the athletic department must also consider the desires of these individuals as well.
6

Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 5:53 pm
Reply

Don’t you think you should call the President of Amherst “President Martin” or “Martin” rather than “Biddy?” If the President were a man named Jim Martin, would you call him “Jim”?
- 7
  
  S on April 2, 2017 at 7:03 pm
  Reply
  
  She introduces and refers to herself as Biddy, and she is popularly known as Biddy. If Jim Martin referred to himself as Jim, we would call him Jim.
- 8
  
  Marc Daalder on April 2, 2017 at 8:04 pm
  Reply
  
  Hi Anonymous- this is definitely a nebulous territory, as S notes below. However, we’ve edited this article to err on the side of professionalism.
- 9
  
  Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 8:49 pm
  Reply
  
  This is simply what she prefers to go by. Most of her emails to the students and staff end with “Biddy” and, if not, end with “Biddy Martin”. You really shouldn’t be assuming the worst in a situation, especially one as sensitive and controversial as this, when you don’t know the complete context.
10

Mafalda Callahan on April 2, 2017 at 9:25 pm
Reply

As the mother of an Amherst Student Athlete, I find this article incredibly offensive. The broad brush that you paint with is completely inappropriate.
11

Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 10:17 pm
Reply

We go to Amherst College to learn. For all its flaws, Amherst has provided me with a top-notch educational experience in my time here thus far. I have taken challenging and rewarding classes with professors and classmates who have changed the way that I see the world. For that, I am immensely grateful. However, it is not the school’s responsibility to micromanage the social culture. We are all adults who should be allowed to interact with whomever we want.

We become close with the people that we spend the most time with. Seeing as though fraternities are banned and social clubs seem to have mysteriously disappeared this year, it’s only logical that athletes will mostly interact with each other because, due to the social climate on this campus, they spend most of their time outside of class with their teammates. This shouldn’t be seen as an act of deliberate exclusion. Besides, if you truly abhor the “toxic masculinity” as fervently as it seems here, you should be thrilled that the athletes are separate from you socially.

As a non-athlete, I have friends who play sports and friends who don’t. I have never thought much about this, and it baffles me to see my classmates arguing about this “athlete/non-athlete divide” ad nauseam on Facebook, student publications, etc. Instead of sitting behind your keyboard talking about how things could be better, perhaps we could turn this potential energy into kinetic energy. Next time you see someone from a different social sphere than your own, whether you are an athlete or not, say hello and introduce yourself.

I know that things aren’t perfect and there are always improvements that can be made, but at the end of the day we all have more in common with each other than we think. Rather than writing articles that pit athletes and non-athletes against each other, we should be working together to form a more unified Amherst. That’s just my opinion.
12

Anonymous on April 2, 2017 at 10:23 pm
Reply

This article is incredibly narrow-minded. Try to be empathetic and step into the shoes of a collegiate athletes. Imagine how many hours are immediately reserved for your sport evey single day. Imagine being utterly exhausted from having a 6:00 am lift, 4 classes, a 4+ hour practice, and then 5 hours of homework…ever single day. Imagine experiencing intensive lessons on grit, perseverance, leadership, teamwork and discipline every single day – lessons that aren’t easily taught in a classroom. Imagine having a game every weekend, imagine experiencing success and failure with the same people by your side to celebrate with you or to feel your pain. Imagine sharing feelings of anger, frustration, triumph, joy, pride, excitement, dissapointment, anxiety, etc with those same people. Imagine doing your best to also excel in class and get involved on campus. Now imagine no one cares about any of this, because you sit with your best friends at lunch who are (insert team name) players too, and that kind of unacceptable behavior overshadows your other efforts. I mean…does it really surprise you that such an environment fosters tight-knit friendships? Or that it brings people so close that they want to sit together at lunch and live together? Is it really crazy for best friends to want to do that? I think you’re right, a conversation would be a good idea, because I think you have no idea what it’s like to be on the other side of such unwarranted condemnation. I think you have judged an entire population and should get to know the people you so quickly label. This whole anti-athlete movement is ridiculous.
- 13
  
  Morgan on April 3, 2017 at 6:59 pm
  Reply
  
  Do you really think this is reducible to “people criticize athletes for sitting together”? Because the article discusses more than that, and the perpetual unwillingness in these comments to engage with other parts—particularly the institution’s resistance to exploring the relationship between athletics and sexual violence—is remarkably telling.
  
  Perhaps the only way to participate in athletics apologia, however, is to narrow the scope and embrace a strawman.
  - 14
    
    drtalc on April 3, 2017 at 8:37 pm
    
    “Remarkably telling?” Please expand. Exactly what does that tell you?
  - 15
    
    Morgan on April 3, 2017 at 9:03 pm
    
    You are aware that this discussion has been going on for several years, right?
    That particular probe has been repeatedly called for by students and faculty alike. If the institution is interested in helping to mend any sort of divide, it strikes me as prudent to, y’know, meaningfully explore a cause for concern.
    
    Students have innumerable stories about predatory behaviors exhibited by athletes. It’s important to note that none of this even begins to suggest that a problem is *exclusive* to athletics, but rather that we should explore whether or not there are grounds to suggest that athletic subcultures lead one to be *more likely* to commit acts of sexual violence.
    
    Isn’t rigorous questioning and exploration supposed to be our whole thing? That seems pretty in line with our purported intellectual goals (i.e. better understanding *all* phenomena).
    
    I fail to see a reason to eschew these efforts—in light of the demand—unless there’s concern that the report would be unflattering.
    
    Perhaps the report wouldn’t be, but there’s no way to know until a comprehensive and methodologically transparent report is written. So it strikes me as baseless to suggest a problem is non-existent when a glut of anecdotes and faculty concerns demonstrate that one might exist.
  - 16
    
    Anonymous on April 4, 2017 at 10:43 am
    
    Morgan,
    
    In this country African-American men commit rape at a rate almost three times higher than white men. With this real statistical evidence, as opposed to the author’s and your anecdotal evidence, would you support a study to see the role of race in sexual violence at Amherst? Of course you wouldn’t, and neither would I. But you feel free to level accusations at a large group of your fellow students with absolutely no basis except your prejudices.
    
    Let’s be honest. You don’t want an objective report. You want a report that finds the athletes guilty. If a report were to be done that shows absolutely no connection between athletics at Amherst and sexual violence, the next article here at the AC Voice would be how the report was a whitewash.
    
    If I were a white male student athlete at Amherst I wouldn’t have even fully consensual sex with any female student. It would simply be too great of a risk.
17

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 12:10 am
Reply

Its amazing that people who profess empathy and compassion so quickly and easily write long articles and Facebook statuses impugning the character and morality of their classmates. Is anybody seriously under the impression that athletes get together and say “boy am I glad that we’ve created de facto segregation!”? Amherst teaches an appreciation of nuance and complexity, neither of which is reflected in this article. Nor is the awareness of the effects this might have on the athlete population. If you mean to argue that this distaste for athletes is a common emotion (which you quite clearly do), why would any athlete be interested in leaving her social circle to hang out with people that hate her?
Also, I don’t think that the New York Times canvasses for anonymous sources on social media. Maybe Amherst should offer some journalism classes.
18

Mammoth on April 3, 2017 at 8:44 am
Reply

This article and the sentiment contained within is trash. If college and higher learning only becomes what a student learns in the classroom then we are headed in a very bad direction. Athletics is a vital ingredient in building a balanced, hard working individual.

As mentioned above, the young athletes show up to Amherst or their respective schools and immediately have huge time and effort demands placed on them by the respective sports. They don’t have time to network in social scenes or school associated clubs like other non-athlete students have the time luxury to do so.

And what many don’t realize is that some of the athletes are not the most out going kids and actually need the built in social environments that their team immediately offers them when they show up to a campus where they no-one.

At most Division 1 colleges, the athletes have completely separate facilities to eat, train and live. And the amazing SCHOLAR/ATHLETES that attend Amherst get vilified for sitting together in a cafeteria. Unreal.

This article is one of the most hypocritical pieces I have ever read.

GO AMHERST!!!
19

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 11:00 am
Reply

My comments to what the author refers to as a “critical analysis” of the Athletics Report can be summed up by this timely article that was published the same day: https://www.wsj.com/articles/jonathan-haidt-on-the-cultural-roots-of-campus-rage-1491000676
20

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 11:27 am
Reply

This whole article is laughable. One very minor example,
“Furthermore, as Amherst’s student body grew about 10% between the publication of the Diver Report and the Athletics Report, the number of students on athletics teams swelled by 12%.”
Swelled? Are you kidding me?
21

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 12:19 pm
Reply

As an Amherst College graduate I have been, and remain, deeply disappointed in the College from a social and political perspective. I am not conservative and am, in fact, liberal. The sad thing is that I feel the need to say that upfront — to inoculate myself from the anticipated backlash to what I have to say . . . which is that you have created a community characterized by unhappiness, disrespect for differences and a lack of gratitude for the privilege of attending the College and being invited to be part of a community. This article exhibited disrespect for the athletes, the sacrifices that they make for the greater good — their “team” — and the fact that athletes give up a significant amount of free time to practice their sport. Free time which could be spent socializing, studying or sleeping. It also exhibits a disrespect for their values, that being a part of a team is meaningful enough to them that they are willing to sacrifice their free time for what they perceive to be a greater reward, achieving goals together. If the students of Amherst College are truly committed to diversity and building a campus-wide community, I suggest that they start looking inward rather than outward. Stop trying to find fault with each other, stop turning in each other in to the Resident Counselors at the slightest provocation. If your room is noisy because the students down the hall are relaxing and playing music and you want to study . . . consider going to the library rather than complaining. Ask yourself why there are so many closed parties on campus these days? Ask yourself why people who aren’t athletes want to go to parties thrown by athletes? Ask yourself why this community isn’t capable of harnessing all the brain power on campus to throw a party that most students feel comfortable attending without worrying that it’s going to be shut down any second because the students have called the campus police on each other. If you have a problem walking nearby the athletes while they are eating in the dining hall, spend fifteen minutes walking back and forth near their tables every day for a week. Studies show that if you can maintain that level of “fear “for that length of time and nothing bad happens to you, you are on your way to conquering your fear. Ask yourselves why football games, hockey games, etc., are so poorly attended and why the non-athletes no longer show support for the Amherst College teams like they did in the past, especially considering the fact that the current teams are far more victorious than when I attended. Focus on being happy rather than being right.
- 22
  
  Morgan on April 3, 2017 at 8:39 pm
  Reply
  
  “This article exhibited disrespect for the athletes, the sacrifices that they make for the greater good — their “team” — and the fact that athletes give up a significant amount of free time to practice their sport.”
  
  It seems a tad weird to frame serving one’s own team (what’s with the quotes?) as serving the greater good, particularly if you’re arguing that a divide needs to be conquered.
  
  Even then, any sort of greater good (should we conceive of it as “serving the Amherst community,” that is) argument sort of falls apart immediately—our athletics program is a money sink, doing less for the actual Amherst community than it does for masturbatory alumni.
  
  “If your room is noisy because the students down the hall are relaxing and playing music and you want to study . . . consider going to the library rather than complaining.”
  
  It is abundantly clear that you’re pretty unfamiliar with many of the actual party-related complaints being levied by residents against members of the athletics community. Knowledge is power, so I’ll give you a few from this academic year:
  
  1) Men’s basketball threw a party in Seligman. Members of the team (i.e. drunk men) proceeded to make incredibly racist comments toward residents of the Chinese and Japanese Language House. I’m not really sure that defending questions like “Is this China?” (in response to the name tags on students’ doors) is the hill to die on, but that’s your choice, I suppose.
  
  2) Members of the football team took it upon themselves to peek into unlocked rooms during a party in Tyler. This was during the first couple weeks of the semester, so clearly it all started on the right foot.
  
  3) For some reason, athletes really love to make transphobic comments in response to Tyler House’s gender-neutral restrooms. This is not a new problem this year, but it nonetheless persists.
  
  I’d hope that your time here equipped you with the necessary skills to see the thread that ties these three examples together. It’s a pretty high contrast color, but I’ll point to it anyway: In each instance, members of men’s teams demonstrated a remarkable entitlement to spaces that they had been *allowed* into—for more information, I encourage you to read our space reservation policy, particularly the bit about veto power. If you violate the terms on which you’ve been granted access to a space, then whose fault is that?
  
  Being grateful does not mean licking the boots of meaty, small-minded men who’re really into saying the word “faggot” when confronted with the possibility of gender-nonconformity, and finding humor in casual racism. Those aren’t caricatures, those are actual behaviors demonstrated by members of our athletics community. Those are the behaviors that foster distrust. Those are the behaviors that make people resistant to allowing athletes to throw events in their spaces.
  
  You regurgitate a fairly typical narrative that places the burden on reducing the divide on students outside of our athletics program. When the institution itself is unwilling to fully probe the conduct of our athletics community, it becomes abundantly clear where that responsibility actually falls.
  - 23
    
    drtalc on April 5, 2017 at 6:41 pm
    
    What is “abundantly clear” is that you relish jumping to conclusions for which you have, at best, only anecdotal support. You are as close-minded as the athletes and alumni you smear but too blind to see it. In my experience, such an attitude will generally not serve you well in the workforce but you may not be interested in working with people that don’t see eye to eye with you and your politics. I’m also far more familiar with the social life at Amherst than you assume — an incorrect conclusion to which you jumped without any concrete facts to back it up. If you haven’t already taken these courses, it may behoove you to take statistics and some hard core science classes that emphasize labs and drawing conclusions based upon actual data and replication of experiments rather than pseudoscience and the corresponding lingo.
24

drtalc on April 3, 2017 at 2:36 pm
Reply

I regularly read the Alumni magazine, spend a significant amount of time on the College’s website, follow Amherst College in social media and read any articles in which the College is mentioned in the mainstream media. Based upon my reading, including this article entitled “The State of Athletics,” I’m not only glad I currently don’t attend Amherst College, I’m glad that I’ve stopped donating money. While I was not a white, male athlete while I attended Amherst, I certainly socialized with many of them and counted, and continue to count, many as my friends. These men have donated a significant amount of money and time to the College, especially post-graduation. Since — if I recall correctly — Amherst College didn’t become co-ed until 1977, I would guess that white males, including athletes, are responsible for a significant amount of the endowment. Since this “toxic masculinity” is apparently abhorrent, it an ideal time to stop taking the money that is donated by white, male athletes. After all, no one likes a hypocrite.

The utter disrespect that you exhibit for other human beings, your determination to categorize human beings that are different than you as “less than” and imply that they — by virtue of their athletic participation — are more capable of sexual assault than you is truly horrifying. The College appears to be dominated by intellectual “thugs” — and faux intellectual at best. You are no different than street gangs that band together and terrorize others in an attempt to disguise your fear and insecurity.
25

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 3:20 pm
Reply

As a person of color . . . and the PROUD mother of a varsity athlete who receives financial assistance, I am frankly shocked at level of animosity and hate speech propagandized in the Indicator article you referenced. How can you expect constructive and progressive dialogue to take place when an entire subset of your population feels targeted, and believe me, they do. Athletes, especially male athletes, are bombarded weekly with team meetings, training sessions, videos and the like all centered on managing their potential future interactions with other students. Since stepping onto campus, my son wears his purple and white team jersey with both pride and trepidation. He is acutely aware that being a varsity athlete makes him a target for heightened scrutiny. To assume, with such a broad brush, that these students are somehow “less than” or undeserving of admission is baffling.They are some of the best and brightest their respective high schools had to offer. They did not arrive at Amherst in a vacuum. They were wholly respected, highly regarded individuals that have accomplished amazing feats both on and off the field.

This is the second time in my son’s life that I’ve had “the talk” with him about unfair bias. The first was regarding his own brown skin color and now this. Am I missing something? Is he the embodiment of “privilege”? And when exactly did it become a crime in America or on college campuses to eat lunch with friends while simultaneously wearing muscles. Good grief Amherst! Get real! For those of you that have never held a full coarse load while practicing thirty plus hours a week, you have NO idea how hard these kids work! None! Period! It’s no wonder they choose not to do a thesis. They have to sleep sometime. Many have suffered broken bones and other injuries only to train harder and compete again. They love Amherst, compete for Amherst, stand for Amherst . . . even if Amherst doesn’t stand with them.
26

Recent Reporting – Marc Daalder on April 3, 2017 at 7:52 pm
Reply

[…] for AC Voice, I’ve published a wideranging rundown of athletics at Amherst […]
27

Anonymous on April 3, 2017 at 9:17 pm
Reply

Think this was meant for The Onion.
28

Go mammoths on April 3, 2017 at 11:04 pm
Reply

I loved my friends at Amherst, but I wouldn’t send my kids there now.

It’s really unfortunate how these confused, angry people have hijacked and eroded the Amherst brand. And they may not know it, but they are burning bridges that could’ve otherwise led to exciting opportunities down the road, professional and otherwise.

My hunch is that many of the students drawn to these causes do not have a strong sense of self-identity. It’s not moral superiority as much as it is personal insecurity.

I wish there were social groups on campus (outside of this crusade) that could provide a purpose to non-athletes the way teams provide one to athletes.
29

Q on April 4, 2017 at 8:09 am
Reply
30

Go wolves on April 4, 2017 at 3:40 pm
Reply

It appears that many of the people complaining about the athletes and their social choices have too much time on their hands. Perhaps they should join a team and see what all the fun is about instead of playing the victim. Wake up and appreciate the amazing opportunity that you have been given and stop wasting your time complaining about who sits where at Val. The correlation between male athletes on campus and rapists is asinine. The conduct of a few should boy taint the group. If you have an irrational fear of athletes or most men with muscles – go for therapy. Better yet, if you’re so upset about housing/social situations/seating arrangements/athletic teams perhaps you should consider spending a semester at your local community college and maybe you will be more appreciative of what you have here at Amherst. If Amherst’s past athletes stopped contributing financially, maybe there would be a bit more support for the teams and a little less attention paid to those who have such resentment for white men.
31

Anonymous on April 4, 2017 at 11:22 pm
Reply

Frankly, I find it ironic that a group of people who preaches tolerance and acceptance repeatedly shows such utter disrespect toward an entire faction of the student body. To diminish the effort and work student-athletes at the College have put in to achieve the position they are in today, is not only ignorant, but also hurtful. I am a female student-athlete at Amherst. I graduated as an AP Scholar with Distinction in the top 10% of my high school class and received a 2200 on my SATs. I was also a multi-sport athlete, a two-time MVP and captain and record holder in several track events during my high school career. To suggest that I am somehow lesser than my non-athlete counterparts simply because I play a sport is both deeply insulting and damages the credibility of your argument.

It is shocking that those who consistently attack and generalize student-athletes do not realize that they are only exacerbating the “student-athlete divide.” How can you expect to make any progress when you continually stigmatize all student-athletes as inherently less intelligent, racist, sexist, disrespectful and so on? I am in no way condoning or excusing any of the blatantly offensive acts committed by some of the student-athletes at Amherst; they made incredibly poor decisions and must face the consequences. However, by continually stereotyping the student-athletes based on the actions of a select few you alienate potential allies.

By the looks of many of the comments on this article, and the discussions I have had with both my athlete and non-athlete friends regarding this piece, I am not alone in my sentiments. I hope you, and others that speak of all student-athletes in such a condescending manner, take these reactions into consideration. If we ever hope to rectify any of the issues within the College, it is critical that there is mutual respect and understanding between both parties.
32

Lord Mammoth on April 7, 2017 at 6:30 am
Reply

As a parent of an Amherst athlete who is both an outstanding student and a kind human being, I find this article offensive on so many different levels. “Breaking up” social groups, with “a variety of measures”? “Dismantl(ing)” the culture of “toxic masculinity”? “Chasing down” sexual violence? I’m not sure precisely what the author means by any these things, but it’s chilling. These are members of your community. What upsets me even more is that some in the faculty and administration seem to (at least partially) share the author’s views. There’s a reason why athletics have such a strong and longstanding tradition at Amherst and so many top schools. Student athletes often go on to successful lives and careers, and it’s not because they are 73% white and more likely to major in economics. Competitive sports teaches them discipline, teamwork, and goal orientation. The college would do well to remember that before any attempts to re-make Amherst athletics in furtherance of some social justice objective.