The official stance of the new legislation states that there can be no organized activities, including informal practices and tournaments, involving more than a few team members during the off-season. "We are against practice by the team out of season," said President Tom Gerety. "We want the season to begin and end."
In previous years, teams held "captain's practices"-semiformal practices run by the team captains and not coaches-to prepare in the offseason.
"The basic policy [used to be] that coaches couldn't coach teams out of season," said Athletic Director Peter Gooding. "There's always been varying modifications of the policy depending on certain sports [but] the concern now [is] that if students are performing informally, what are we supposed to do about it?"
This decision was in part a response to the recent injury of a Colby hockey player who, while failing to wear a helmet, was injured during an informal practice session with his team.
Gooding cited safety as the main concern for this policy, but added that the timing worked well with a secondary concern of several of the NESCAC presidents who "believe that athletes playing sports year round is too much."
However, Gooding questioned the impact that this rule change will have at the College. "On some campuses it's been a big deal and on some others it hasn't," he said. "In one sense it's much ado about nothing at Amherst ... We haven't had very much organized out-of-season practice ... [because] our athletes often play other sports or are very busy doing other things ... We just don't need to get ourselves all hyped about it because it has not been an issue at Amherst more than a couple of times in the past 15 years or so."
Gooding also pointed to the tightness of space and the lack of facilities as another reason that out-of-season practices are not as big of an issue at the College.
The athletic department will hold a meeting this Friday to determine how the department will allow the decision to impact Amherst policy, according to Associate Athletic Director Dave Hixon '75. "[As of now] the basic rule of thumb is not to reserve a facility for a team ... any participation must be voluntary, [there can be] no 'scrimmaging' off campus or against outside groups, the activities should be open and unorganized ... [and] no school owned equipment should be issued or used," said Hixon.
"Where does the student's freedom of recreation formally end and where does the spirit of the regulations begin?" asked Gooding. He expressed confidence, however, that Amherst's policy on out-of-season practices would remain relatively untouched by the decision. "The informal get-togethers like what we have at Amherst are okay," said Gooding. "The only thing that we cannot allow is for a group of kids to get together and go off campus and play. There's some support for that … I do have some concern for interfering in the basic rights of students but balanced against that is our constant concern about students traveling and about their well-being … Who's going to be responsible?"
The new regulation, however, only affects the varsity NESCAC sports, so that club sports, such as frisbee and skiing, are not affected at all. Gooding acknowledged the advantages of the freedom that club sports have but said that they lack the structure and support that come with being part of an intercollegiate team.
"And that's part of the issue here," said Gooding. "Most students in their club activities can do whatever they want ... [but] if I was a parent, whether it was of a frisbee player or soccer player or someone on the chess team, I would want to be sure that my son or daughter was traveling safely and that the environment that they were going to would be one of safety ... It is a bit odd that someone who voluntarily wants to do something isn't being allowed to do something while their roommate can go out and throw a frisbee."
Coaches and athletic staffs of the other NESCAC schools are going through similar struggles to decide the effect they will allow the regulation to have upon sports at their colleges.
"It's hard to tell you whether serious changes are happening," said Jeffrey Ward, Bowdoin College's athletic director. "We've had a few, but not many, incidents of teams getting together to have games out of season ... We probably won't allow that any more ... [but] we aren't going to ban people from getting together to play. I don't think that's actually a problem here. Kids get together and play and I think that's a very healthy thing."
Like Gooding, Ward plans to speak to his captains "as to how we make sure everyone stays true to the spirit of things."
At the NESCAC meeting, the presidents also reviewed the status of the previous decision made to establish a cap of 75 students allowed on the football squads at the 10 NESCAC schools with teams.
"Amherst was not significantly impacted because we usually only have a few more students than 75. We had exactly 75 this year," said Gooding. Other schools, however, had more trouble with recruiting. Hamilton College was only able to bring in 55 players, Bates College filled 60 slots and Bowdoin College had 62.
"Those three schools traditionally have had a more challenging time with recruiting," said Gooding. "But we all have difficulty because the pool of athletes that are academically qualified to attend our schools has shrunk over the years ... Last year was the first year that we had to cut to 75 and none of us anticipated that only half the schools would fill their rosters. [This decision] was essentially a perfect example of very well meaning presidents and athletic directors [that] were trying to balance equity between the schools and none of us anticipated the side results."
"This is in part a measure to keep the [size of the] football team on a lean diet," said Gerety. "There's a possibility that reforms will bring [the rosters] down to the size of NFL teams-50 or so"
However, not all members of the athletic staff agree with the rule change. "I don't believe in capping the roster," said Head Football Coach E.J. Mills. "I think it goes against the open participation philosophy of the NESCAC."
"They have started to control our numbers [roster size] from an admissions standpoint so it just doesn't make any sense to me to have this additional cap [of 75 players]," he added.
Gooding pointed to rising academic standards and his belief that not as many students are playing football in high school to explain the increasing difficulty colleges are having recruiting players. According to Gooding, this is because of "the one-sport phenomenon. There is very little organized football in fall and spring, especially in high school, so athletes are turning toward sports like baseball that can be played in both seasons. Even in college there is very little competition in the spring," Gooding added.
The inability of schools to even begin to reach the cap has resulted in much discussion between the coaches and athletic directors of the various colleges. In addition to being an attempt to balance the size of the teams from schools like Hamilton and other schools such as Tufts University and Middlebury and Williams Colleges who usually have anywhere from 80 to 100 students on their teams, this recent regulation was another in a long run of decisions over recent years to try to change the profile of NESCAC schools, particularly with regard to admissions.
New worries have arisen regarding the undue pressure placed on the students of the smaller teams. "A team that starts with 75 players can get down to 60 by natural attrition," said Gooding. "A team like Hamilton with natural attrition can go down to 40 or 45 … It results in lopsided scores. We worry about students suffering physically because [football] is a very robust sport."
The mental and physical health of the students was a priority as the presidents discussed the situation and agreed to allow Hamilton as much flexibility as necessary to increase the size of their team "without hindering the academic integrity of the school," said Gooding. "We're all worried about Hamilton this year. None of us want to see a group of students completely overworked. Fortunately, the football coaches are a particularly sensitive group of people and will thus try to avoid completely crushing Hamilton."
"When you are a football player and you are not playing well, you are still getting beat up in practice," said Mills. "[Hamilton and Bates] haven't had the wins in recent years to keep the kids around and have an environment of good feelings. But it's not for a lack of effort. Their coaches do a great job and the kids they have that stay do a great job as well."
But Gooding sees little possibility of Hamilton following in Swarthmore College's footsteps in cutting their football team. He points to a high level of "institutional commitment" towards the football program at Hamilton, a commitment that was lacking at Swarthmore.
"I can't imagine that Hamilton would lose their football program," said Gooding. "[But] even if they did, we would only lose our scrimmage game." Each of the 10 NESCAC football teams plays eight games and one scrimmage game over the course of a season. There are no games with non-NESCAC schools.
"If [Hamilton and Bates] drop out, we'll have a hard time finding teams to play," said Gerety.