Great Schools, Acting Like Great Schools

7/2/2020

Swarthmore Soccer: They'll Always Have 2019

Some colleges have their priorities straight during this time of Covid-19.
Four schools I already admired – Bowdoin, Morehouse, Sarah Lawrence and Swarthmore -- showed their values in recent days by cancelling all or part of their autumn athletic programs, so they could concentrate on education.
Imagine.

These schools do not exist to present extravaganza football games every Saturday during the fall semester, for the benefit of boosters and TV networks, to churn up money to keep the whole monstrosity going.

However: each decision to cancel caused terrible pain to the people who mattered the most – the student-athletes who will not get to compete this fall, practice with their teammates, perform in front of vociferous family members and loyal fans.

You cannot red-shirt a virus-cancelled season, say “come back for a fifth year.” Plus, these student-athletes have futures, although the 2020 fall season will not be part of them.

We take it personally in our family. Our grand-daughter, Lulu Wilson, is a loyal member of the Swarthmore women’s soccer team that reached the Division III tournament in her first two seasons.

She played very little in her first year due to an eye condition following a concussion, but she played some in her sophomore year - - and every time I checked in on her she raved about her teammates and her coaches and the practices and the togetherness.

In between, she pursues a pre-med program, having already spent compelling days in hospitals, gowned up, watching the routines and even the operations. She is all in.
When Swarthmore cancelled all fall sports, I checked in on Lulu and asked how she felt about the decision.

“Honestly, I think it is smart of Swat,” she texted, using the nickname for the school, “and I admire that they are trying to keep us safe and move our country towards an end.
“I think it would be ignorant of them to let us play,” she added. “I look at these big schools going back full-force and I worry that these kids are going to cause outbreaks and keep the pandemic going for the country as a whole.

"So I respect what they did,” she said, adding her opinion that “online learning is not the same as a true Swat experience.”

Now she is in mourning for what will always be lost – an autumn of practices in the drizzle and gathering darkness, the bus rides around the Northeast, and the identifiable voices of parents who travel from around the country to cheer for Swat.
(Intro to Div III: in 2018, after Swarthmore lost to Middlebury in the Round of 16 up in Vermont, on the long bus ride back to Philadelphia, many of the players started studying for final exams coming up, she told me then.)

“These four years are really special for us to be together as a team so this time apart will be hard," Lulu said Thursday. "We will have to find ways to stick together and find the positives in this situation.”

Swarthmore student-athletes are not alone.
I had a premonition a few days ago when I read that Bowdoin had cancelled fall sports. My wife and I have fallen in love with the college in Brunswick, Maine, from visiting the area in recent years, and we always find time to visit the jewel of an art museum on the campus.

I also admired the decision by Morehouse in Atlanta to cancel football this year.  I have become a fan of Morehouse over the years because of alumni like Martin Luther King, Jr., Donn Clendenon of the 1969 Mets, my Brooklyn hero Spike Lee, and Terrance McKnight, knowledgeable host of a nightly show on WQXR-FM, the classical station in New York.

And Sarah Lawrence, in Bronxville, just above New York, is where we were lucky enough to send our two daughters, who gained great educations and eclectic talented friends. The other day, SLC cancelled all autumn sports.

All schools are wrestling with terrible choices in this time of the virus. There are no easy answers, but these four admirable schools examined their values and realized sports were expendable – nevertheless, leaving a gigantic loss for a young student who loves her sport, her team, and also her education.
###

Alan Rubin link

7/3/2020 10:45:59 am

George-great topic. Thanks for sharing.

I can understand Lulu’s frustration and disappointment with Swarthmore College’s cancellation of sports due to health concerns.

Pure student-athletic programs add a richness to the college experience in so many ways that cannot be measured. This is also true of students who give their time to school activities such as band, the debate team, community activities, etc.

I played soccer for four years at Lehigh University in the 1950’s while majoring in Metallurgical engineering. Although the hours committed to soccer played havoc with both my sleep and study schedules, it actually helped me deal with all the pressures of school. I could get through the most trying of subjects knowing that I could enter a carefree at 4 pm soccer practice. My signature advice to the youngster I coach is that it is all about enjoying practice. The games are a bonus.

Yes, I remember studying on the bus with a flashlight coming back from distant away games and staying up to three in the morning preparing for an exam or two.

It was all about learning time management.

My first job after graduating from Lehigh with a MS MetE was with Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford, CT. It felt like being paid for a vacation.

My three grandchildren are dealing with various degrees of disruption to their college careers, but like Lulu they are showing great maturity and will be better for it.

George Vecsey

7/5/2020 08:01:15 am

Alan, thanks for your input. It is so hard to play a sport in college and also study. Friend of mine, a star shortstop in college and a two-year minor leaguer with memories to last a lifetime, recalls his introduction to being a student athlete. The advisor to the athletes -- wonderful woman named Mary Villegas Condon, married to the football captain/Marine vet -- was a mentor to athletes. She escorted players to the library, said that after practice they would find a corner of the library, and study. That was fine, my friend said, except he would find a quiet corner and then, bam, his head would be on the table until closing time. Div III athletes are not turning pro -- they make their labs and tests. Vive la difference, GV

bruce

7/5/2020 01:41:08 am

george,

good call by all of 'em.

unfortunate for the players, but if this is the worst thing that ever happens to them.....

and, as a non american, it's good to read that real stoo dent ath a leets really exist.

didn't watch any of the american extravaganza tonight, but i did hear 'my country tis of thee' earlier today.

always odd to hear the melody for 'god save the queen/king' with those lyrics.

bruce

George Vecsey

7/5/2020 08:12:11 am

Bruce: I can't speak for any of them, but our grand-daughter sounded quite sad at losing a season of practices, games, bus rides, camaraderie. She'll see worse in med school and in her practice.
As for the anthem, one of the things I love most about soccer is the pre-game anthem, in person or on the tube. I wasn't surprised by the music of "God Save the King/Queen." My mom was born in England and we knew of the anthem. Some anthems are just glorious in a bustling stadium -- among my favorites are the German anthem (Music by Haydn), Russian (I remember long summer evenings in Russian stadiums), Brazil, and the merry little tarantella of Italy, my favorite national team (with rather fierce lyrics). I will never forget being in the Stade de France in 1998 hearing that beautiful anthem and thinking, "I am here..." and then watching Zidane play the best final I have ever seen, Oh, and I believe Canada also has an anthem. (English or French, I see hockey players shuffling their skates, bright colors....just a wonderful anthem.) Best, GV

bruce

7/5/2020 08:41:01 am

george,

i don't doubt she's very sad.

i would be too.i played competitive sports for from 9-22 until covering them meant i couldn't play them.

russian, japanese and french are my favourite anthems.

the thing i like about canada's anthem is listening to it sung in both languages at the same time by the crowd when the game is in quebec.

some great soccer memories for you.

zidane was brilliant. i was living in japan then and watched the final very late.

too bad his temper got the best of him against italia in 2006 or they might be three time world champeens.

bruce

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

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