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Username Post: Yikes
Go Green 
PhD Student
Posts: 1124

Age: 52
Reg: 04-22-10
02-15-17 09:13 AM - Post#221880    
    In response to hoopla

  • hoopla Said:

Go Green I'd love your take on state of Dartmouth Athletics.



The state of Dartmouth athletics all depends on where you think the baseline should be.

On a 10,000 foot level, men’s athletics seem to be doing fine from a historical perspective in the fall and spring sports. True, football took a step back, but I’m in the camp that 2016 was an aberration where talented but untested guys just couldn’t put it together for whatever reason. I’m optimistic that we will be in the thick of things in 2017. Soccer advanced in the NCAA. Baseball lost the Rolfe Division in a playoff—and that was the earliest exit we’ve had in a long while. Cross-country went to the NCAA yet again other Fall and Spring sports more or less held with their historical norms.

Winter, the men could be doing better. We’ve discussed basketball to death. Hockey isn’t doing that great, but it’s been a while since men’s hockey has been relevant.

The women, in my opinion, are underperforming. Lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey, and basketball are not nearly the powers they used to be. Tennis and softball have historically been weak, but have been bright spots for us in recent years. Rugby is fine. Cross county will never be as good as it was during the D’Agostino years, and that’s fine. Volleyball has never been good and probably never will be. Ditto for swimming.

What’s happened with the women? Part of it is the financial aid. Part of it is that Dartmouth took women’s athletics seriously from the get-go and we got off to a fast start as a result. The others have caught up. Part of it is that the urban campuses in the league aren’t nearly the shitholes that they used to be, so parents are more comfortable sending young Molly to Philadelphia or New Haven instead of Hanover than a generation ago.

Sheehy has certainly tried to shake things up. Thus far, it looks like he’s missed more than he’s hit. As I said before, the Valley News all but threw down the gauntlet with Koclanes earlier, and the team wasn’t able to rise to the challenge in her defense. My understanding is that Princeton, Penn, and Harvard all have brought in excellent basketball recruits, and we’re not keeping pace. I’m sure Koclanes is a great coach and that people enjoy playing for her. While I’m not saying Wielgus should have been retained, I see little evidence that the team will be competing for a championship anytime soon with Koclanes.

As for McLaughlin, I’ve said I’m willing to give him time. I like Cormier a lot, but I’ll concede that Cormier probably had a ceiling and probably wasn’t going to compete for championships. Having said that, like everyone else, I think the men’s basketball team has underachieved since he left.

I’m very interested in seeing how the new women’s lacrosse coach does. She’s got incredible credentials. Really a shame that the Patton era ended the way it did. My best guess is that Patton didn’t adapt and some of the tactics that worked with players in the 1990s and early 2000s were taken poorly by players in the 2010s. Probably would make a great story for an article if people are willing to be honest and open about what happened.

Women’s rugby is one team where it appears Sheehy made the right call. Coach Archambault was pretty much the rugby equivalent of Coach Wielgus. Her better days were probably behind her. The new coach has two years and two Ivy titles. Would be nice if they went a little deeper in the NCAAs, but hopefully that will come soon enough.

I’m not sure how many more bullets Sheehy has left in his guns. Facilities have been modernized—and I hope that indoor practice building gets the go-ahead soon. Financial aid will never be as good as HYP. I think Hanover is a tremendous place to go to college, but we can’t sell it as a comparative “safe haven” the way we could in the 1980s and 1990s.

So we will see…


Edited by Go Green on 02-15-17 09:17 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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