School Information System
Newsletter Sign Up |

Subscribe to this site via RSS: | Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

November 7, 2008

Singing Our Song

6 November 2008

Dear Mr. Fitzhugh,

My name is Lindsay Brown, and I am the chair of the history department at St. Andrew's School in Delaware. I have been thinking about the role of academics and athletics in college placement for some time, and being at a boarding school I wear many hats and so see multiple sides of this issue. I do a great deal of work with athletes that I coach in the sport of rowing, helping them to be recruits for college coaches. I began talking to people and commenting about how I had never done any recruiting for our top history students, and that there was a significant contrast between athletic and academic interest in the admission process for colleges.

With these vague thoughts, I decided to write something, possibly to send to some publication(?) or maybe just to do some therapeutic venting on my keyboard. I sent a draft of my thoughts to several of my colleagues, including our librarian who is a relentless researcher. In response to my short essay, she sent me your article on the "History Scholar" on very similar ideas--I guess I wasn't as original as I thought! But I wanted to send you my thoughts, ask if you had a moment to give me any feedback, and then also ask if you think it was acceptable for me to potentially send my essay out--where exactly I'm not sure.

In any case, I was impressed with your work and your information on this topic.

Many thanks,
Lindsay Brown
History
St. Andrew's School

My essay is copied below and attached:

The headlines are meant to grab our attention and alert us to a crisis in education: "High school graduates are not ready for college" or some variation on this idea that college freshmen can't do the work their professors demand of them. Colleges and professors lament this situation, and, in a related vein, often complain that athletics and athletic recruiting are running out of control to the detriment of the academic mission of their institutions. And not just the big schools that compete for national championships in football or basketball are sounding this alarm; even top tier, highly selective colleges and universities sing a similar melody. What should happen to correct this situation?

Ironically, I would like to suggest that colleges look to their athletic departments for inspiration and a possible way to improve the academic strength of their student body.

I am a high school history teacher and chairman of the history department at a boarding school that sends 100% of its graduates on to colleges and universities, including many of the most selective schools. I am also the boys' varsity crew coach, and many of our athletes compete in the world of college rowing. There is an overlap in many cases between the most selective academic and rowing colleges, and the Ivy League schools would be at the top of that list but there are many others including schools such as Cal, Trinity, Wisconsin, Williams, Colby to name a few.

There are numerous articles available that bemoan the poor level of preparation of high school students for college academics, or that assert that college athletics have run wild, destroying academic integrity. In my dual roles as teacher and coach, I have some observations to offer from the perspective of a high school teacher, albeit a teacher at a rigorous, selective boarding school, and the perhaps counterintuitive suggestion that if colleges are serious about improving the quality of their students, they should learn from their coaches. Here is the crux of the matter: during my 22 years of working as a teacher/coach, I have fielded innumerable calls and emails from rowing coaches asking me for direct information about my top athletes. Coaches want to learn about the athletes they are recruiting, and they want to get past the basic numbers--height, weight, or score on a rowing machine--and determine if the athlete would contribute to their program. In that same time I have never once had a professor or department head call me and ask for information about our top history scholars. Professors seem to be totally separated from the admission process of their college while coaches are working closely with admissions to try to bring the best athletes to the school. Why don't professors, or at least department heads, work more directly with their college and with high schools to recruit the top students?

Rowing is not a widespread sport; there are no youth rowing leagues, for example, that students join at age 5. There is, however, a rowing machine that serves to give basic information about a rower's strength, stamina, and therefore athletic potential. It is called a Concept 2 Ergometer, and the score a rower earns on this machine can be compared with any other rower anywhere in the country, or even the world. It is an SAT for rowing, so to speak, with many the same drawbacks of that standardized
test. Brute force on the rowing machine does not necessarily tell a college coach about the athlete's commitment to his team, his love of the sport itself, his attitude, his work ethic, or his willingness to take learn and take coaching. On the other hand, an athlete from a small or obscure high school rowing program can get noticed and even recruited if he can achieve a top score on the machine. In other words, a coach looks at an athlete's score, assesses potential, and then follows up by contacting the coach to learn what lies beyond the mere numbers.

When coaches call me, they ask questions such as "does this student work hard?" Or "does he contribute to the team spirit?" They ask about his technique while rowing, and his general level of athleticism. They are searching for information about the intangibles of the sport that will give them a better picture of the applicant. I am friends or at least friendly with many of these college coaches, having gotten to know them
over the years, and I give a positive but always honest evaluation of the athletes I coach
. Then, if a coach decides that he likes the profile of the athlete, he will talk with his college admissions office and offer his support for the athletes application. The admissions office might ask further questions of the coach, but there is a working relationship there that in the end is trying to find student/athletes that are good fits for
the school.

Do college professors or department heads do the same thing? Do they seek out high school students who are interested in their subject area and make the effort to improve the quality of the students they teach by recruiting? Do they take the time to talk to the admissions office on behalf of high school students with particularly strong talent? As far as I can tell, they do not. So then I wonder why professors lament the poor quality of the students they teach and why sometimes those same professors complain that athletics are dominating their school. It seems to me that the better response would be to follow the model of the coaches and talk to high school teachers about their top students, build a relationship with those students and assist them in the process of applying to their school.

Furthermore, when I talk to our alumni about their college experience, it seems that most find their coach is the adult with whom they have the closest personal relationship. Their coach is the one who knows them by name. Their coach is the person who shows a genuine interest in their general health and well-being, including their academic progress. In the best rowing programs, the coaches work with the athletes to make sure those athletes are finding success academically: they put their athletes in study hall or get them help with study skills if that is needed. In the best-run rowing programs, the coach is actually a strong supporter of the academic program. For one thing, in rowing there is no professional league and no potential lucrative rowing contracts out there, so coaches know that it will be success in academics that will lead to each athlete's future employment. Furthermore, rowers as a group tend to be driven, goal-oriented, and self-disciplined, and my experience has been that the best students are often the best rowers. They know how to work hard: both in sports and in academics. Rowers generally insist on keeping their academic work strong, and a coach who ignores the rowers' desire to achieve success academically risks losing athletes. Again, coaches understand that they get the best performance by connecting with their athletes and caring for them. Could the academic side of colleges learn
from this example
?

I know that I worked hardest for those professors I believed had my best interests at heart and who made the effort to get to know me as an individual. I have tried to do the same with the students I teach and with the students I coach.

Having challenged colleges and professors to think like their athletic colleagues and work to "recruit" top students in their respective fields, I also want to challenge high school students to work in their own self-interest and pursue academic, departmental-specific recruiting. Just as athletes contact college coaches and try to get support from those coaches in the admissions process, students with a special talent or interest in a given subject area should contact department chairs at colleges of interest. In the world of rowing, I am confident that when a rower makes such a telephone call or sends off an email, the coach will respond and follow up. They will have a conversation, and the coach will make some initial decisions about the compatibility of the athlete with
their program. The coaches not only ask questions about rowing prowess, they also, even first, ask about academic strength, because they know that this is the first and highest hurdle for any potential recruit. The key point, though, is that there is a conversation, and the coach follows up with any potential recruit. My rowers know this, and so they are motivated to seek out the assistance of a coach. Since no one has ever heard of a history department chair working actively to recruit a top history scholar, my top students don't even think to make such a call. I wonder what would happen if they did?

I will be talking with coaches soon about the rowers who have applied to their college from my school--I know those calls are coming, and I look forward to talking about the strengths of our athletes. I am still waiting to hear from any history chair at any of these same schools about the many fine history scholars we have here; I would love to explain our history curriculum and give them a picture of the students beyond the score of any of the standardized tests.

Posted by Will Fitzhugh at November 7, 2008 2:19 PM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas