Has football become too important at Harvard?

[TexasTerror]

Read out of the Charleston newspaper about Harvard football and the off the field issues the Crimson are facing right now. A very intriguing read which talks to the fact that not many on campus even realize some of the problems which have gained a fair share of press because athletics only makes a riple at the school. Wonder how things will turn out for the Crimson, but as the article says, when people get a chance to knock Harvard, they go about it...

By Chris Dufresne

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The team captain, an all-league linebacker, is kicked off the team and charged with domestic assault after allegedly breaking into his girlfriend's dorm room.

The quarterback is suspended five games for violating team rules, but details of his transgression are kept secret by the school.

A senior running back is dismissed because of actions the coach calls "disgusting" during an annual preseason "Skit Night."

These are only a few of the story lines generated by a single football team during the past year, incidents that seem to go hand-in-hand nowadays with big-time college sports.

Only never before has the team been Harvard, arguably the most prestigious university in the nation if not the world.

http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=sports&tableId=112073&pubDate=10/8/2006

[Husky Alum]

I live in Boston.

This situation in Harvard may not be making a ripple in small sample of people the author of the article talked to. However, the situation has been predominantly reported in both the sports section and the general news section of both Boston daily newspapers and has been on TV plenty here.

In fact, it seems that transgressions at Harvard are getting (in my mind) MORE of the media's attention up here BECAUSE it's Harvard. Personally, I think much of the media attention is even overblown (and that's a lot for a guy who grew up near Yale Bowl to admit). On that point I agree with with the author of the article.

People like to pick on ANYTHING related to the colleges here in Boston and their students. People act like these schools just popped up overnight.

Maybe if the "future leaders of the world" read something other than the Economist and the New York Times, they'd realize what was going on in their own campus.

[Ivytalk]

I live in Boston.

This situation in Harvard may not be making a ripple in small sample of people the author of the article talked to. However, the situation has been predominantly reported in both the sports section and the general news section of both Boston daily newspapers and has been on TV plenty here.

In fact, it seems that transgressions at Harvard are getting (in my mind) MORE of the media's attention up here BECAUSE it's Harvard. Personally, I think much of the media attention is even overblown (and that's a lot for a guy who grew up near Yale Bowl to admit). On that point I agree with with the author of the article.
People like to pick on ANYTHING related to the colleges here in Boston and their students. People act like these schools just popped up overnight.

Maybe if the "future leaders of the world" read something other than the Economist and the New York Times, they'd realize what was going on in their own campus.

That's 100% correct, IMHO. Undergraduates cared more about football when I was there over 30 years ago, and even then most of them couldn't be bothered. When Harvard pharts, the press smells it!:rolleyes:

[bulldog10jw]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/football/la-sp-harvard7oct07,0,2038933.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Saw the original article yesterday. My question was "How did this relatively small controversy make the LA Times".

[Mr. C]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/football/la-sp-harvard7oct07,0,2038933.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Saw the original article yesterday. My question was "How did this relatively small controversy make the LA Times".
Chris Dufresne (one of my old collegues at the Times) is a national football writer. He's looking for stories to write about and this was an interesting one for him to write about.

This is the part of the story that caught me eye:

Thomas Dingman, the dean of freshmen who instructed Murphy not to talk, referred all interview requests to Robert Mitchell, Harvard's director of communications. Mitchell did not respond to an interview request.

Bob Scalise, Harvard's athletic director, also declined to comment, and no Harvard football players were allowed to be interviewed for this article.

Hide your head in the sand and the problems will go away. These eggheads at Harvard are just SO smart.

[Maverick]

The rule here is the same one that I heard in the movie, War Games. The only way to win is not to play. In college athletics, the less that is said by the fewest of people the greater the chance that the media will be able to exploit the situation. Now what happened at Harvard with those incidents is not acceptable but for far too many the fact that they happened says that there is a problem. Harvard athletics "failed" to prevent them from happening or wasn't harsh enough in their response would be the follow-up to any comments made by Harvard. Absent any comparative information regarding non-student athletes at Harvard, are these "typical" and frequent examples of behavior by members of the football team. Had this happened at Salem State do you think that there is any article? If there is a recurring pattern of misbehavior that is not addressed or even acknowledged in a public fashion, that would seem to indicate a problem. It seems that journalists believe themselves to be fair and equitable on such matters when in reality they do have an angle or viewpoint that drives the story. With the nature of language, that position becomes evident with the choices of key words. Harvard has not buried their head in the sand as much as they have chosen not to play.

[Husky Alum]

Chris Dufresne (one of my old collegues at the Times) is a national football writer. He's looking for stories to write about and this was an interesting one for him to write about.

This is the part of the story that caught me eye:

Thomas Dingman, the dean of freshmen who instructed Murphy not to talk, referred all interview requests to Robert Mitchell, Harvard's director of communications. Mitchell did not respond to an interview request.

Bob Scalise, Harvard's athletic director, also declined to comment, and no Harvard football players were allowed to be interviewed for this article.

Hide your head in the sand and the problems will go away. These eggheads at Harvard are just SO smart.

I didn't go to Harvard (but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night), and in today's day and age with the threat of lawsuits because of the Buckley Amendment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_Amendment

schools (NOT just the folks in Cambridge) are VERY reluctant to say anything about students and their welfare. That's why in today's day and age you don't openly see people talking about why players are suspended other than for a "violation of team rules" or "a violation of the school's code of conduct" or "for disciplinary reasons".

I'm the LAST person in the world to defend Harvard, but in this case, I think they're doing the right thing.

No one's denying that on the surface it's an intersting story, but I think it's pretty crappy journalism to quote one student who said they didn't know what was going on at Harvard and extrapolate that throughout the Harvard University as a whole.

I'm sure I can find a few students at USC who don't know who Pete Carroll is. Does that mean USC students are apathetic?