Ivy Football Players Finally Acting Like Football Players
Ivy League presidents and athletic directors go to great lengths to make sure that Ancient Eight sports are different (read: worse) than the rest of the NCAA -- no scholarships, a ban on football playoffs, no spectators showing up to games.But Ivy League athletes have gone out of their way to act like their Big Ten and SEC counterparts this season. Here's just a short list of their indiscretions:
- Harvard's captain, middle linebacker Matthew Thomas, is in anger-management classes and alcohol rehab after allegedly breaking through the door of a former girlfriend's room and attacking her.
- Harvard backup receiver Keegan Toci was thrown off the team after what coach Tim Murphy called a "disgusting" performance in the team's annual skit.
- Dartmouth's entire football team had a bench-clearing brawl against Holy Cross.
- The likely Player of the Year, Yale running back Mike McLeod, was arrested in October after he, along with quarterback Matt Polhemus, got in a fight with a couple of Yale hockey players.
It seems the nation has taken notice -- The New York Times in October, and now Sports Illustrated. Columnist Lester Munson notes that while Harvard has put its foot down and suspended players this season, Yale has let its bad seeds continue to play:
And so there will be a whole new vocabulary for the elite at The Game. They'll find themselves tossing around words like rehab, community service, probation, suspension, criminal mischief, breach of peace, breaking and entering, assault and criminal damage to property. And they'll wonder about the different approaches at Harvard and at Yale to violence among their student-athletes and the importance of winning The Game.
Ratcheting up the melodrama, Munson even suggests that former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett (recently sentenced to 7.5 years in prison) and a former Nebraska running back (recently found guilty of seven counts of assault with a deadly weapon) should have thought about going to Yale when making college plans. Honestly? We're completely in favor of that.
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November 17th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
ha, he, What a ‘large’ crowd, did he make his money back on his investment?
November 19th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
http://wesleying.blogspot.com/2006/11/friend-us.html
hmm… how easy does ivygate make for people to drunk-message it with pseudo-slanderous gossip? answer: never easy enough
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
But seriously…when the heck is the Ivy League gonna be able to play in I-AA playoffs? It’s getting ridiculous…I agree with this person: http://annalsofspacetime.blogspot.com/2007/12/bcs-is-load-of-bs.html