Those among us with Queen's/Kingston leanings would do well to check out The Whig-Standard and get the local paper of record's take on the university's sweeping review of the Athletics and Recreation department, which was released earlier today.
Some brief background: You can't spell "interuniversity athletics at Queen's" without quaint. Sports at the alma mater are structured on a 1970 report that was very in keeping with that era. It essentially stressed this kind of touchy-feely, sports-is-for-everyone approach that has been discredited by the perennial also-ran status of too many (not all, mind you) of many Golden Gaels teams, not to mention that other thing -- what it's called? -- reality.
Many people, most notably Claude Scilley at The Whig, have made this argument: The university uses images of Gaels athletes in promotional literature that play up Queen's striving toward excellence, but turns around and settles for mostly mediocre in sports, thanks to what's been called an "intramural approach."
The new AD, Leslie Dal Cin, is the antithesis of that. So is building of the new Queen's Centre and now the full 36-page report (in .pdf form) authored by Dr. Bob Crawford and Dr. Janice Deakin signals that era is as good as gone: "It's not all about winning, let's not ever make that mistake, but let's not be afraid to say that we want to win and are willing to make a commitment to do so."
(And there went the last shred of '60s idealism and '90s political correctness, although the latter gets a bad rap.)
None of the recommendations -- which include cutting back to 10-16 varsity teams and instituting user pay for various intramural and health/fitness programs -- have been made in a vacuum. It seems to be in keeping with the current buzzword "optimization" -- concentrating on what you do best -- as well as what's happening across Ontario as universities figure out how to fund athletic scholarships. The review notes for all that school spirit, there are nine other universities in Ontario where students pay a greater fee to support varsity teams. There's also repeated reference to programs developing "self-generated revenues," although it would be too speculative by half to wonder if that would ever mean having a fully self-sufficient football program, like the Laval Rouge et Or.
(Fees for intramurals is an interesting can of worms. As a frosh 10 years ago, I might not have been able to play in the hockey league if it had involved paying to play. Then again, the report points out a lot of students prefer to pay to join a gym instead of work out for free at the school. We're in the era of vote-with-your-wallet.)
Anyway, see what tomorrow's Whig has to say and see what Principal Karen Hitchcock decides to do, but if this moves Queen's a bit more toward collegiate sports done right (i.e., the American way), so be it. The U.S. style is far from perfect, but strangely enough, does allow for academic schools to have their moments in sports.
Rutgers is a leading research university and the reigning NCAA women's basketball champs. Rice University in Houston, a top engineering school with a total undergrad student body of less than 3,000, won the College World Series in 2003, beating Stanford in what was called the "RBIs and SATs Series." Three players on that team went in the top 10 of the major-league baseball draft. So it can be done.
This isn't about creating a CIS juggernaut, a University of Alberta on Lake Ontario. The satisfaction of knowing Queen's is willing to win alone is a kick for this alumnus.
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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3 comments:
They're also going to propose a giant athletics fee increase alongside making a bevy of previously-free activities now user-pay.
It seems to be the general theme - the University's willing to change, as long as the students bear the brunt of it.
Cutting back in the measures they have is the absolute bare minimum they had to do to avoid the program falling further into irrelevence - this isn't a revolution by any standard, no matter how many times the report talks about how "striving for excellence" is good.
There is an article in this morning's Whig-Standard about the review. The Whig uses a lot of ink telling why hockey is in danger of being chopped from the varsuty teams. Is not Queen's planning to spend a lot of money to build a cadillac ice palace.? A cadillac facility and no elite level team to showcase it? If the arena is to be used only for intramural sport then it seems that it would make more sense to just build a basic ice arena with little seating and frills. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect in their palnning process here. If you are going to build a cadillac facility , then retaining varsity hockey should not be in question.
I read Mr. Scilley's article and it was a solid piece of work -- the focus seemed to be under the recommendations that teams be kept or chopped based on the "20 criteria," hockey is tied for 14th among 34 teams and thus is in a danger zone if the school cuts back to 10-16 teams.
The notion of Queen's without men's hockey is unimaginable, but as the article noted, they haven't won a championship in a long time and it's a very expensive program to operate.
Again, this is why I don't understand why the university doesn't let some alumni get together and take football and men's hockey private. Go to these alums who work on Bay St. now and say, "Remember that team you used to play for? They need your help."
Wouldn't that be a hell of a lot better than having the students bear the brunt, as Mr. King says above?
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