Pete Alvanos, formerly the head coach of the now-defunct Swarthmore College football team, took charge of the Hamilton program in 2001. In his third season the team showed signs of improvement-albeit measured-by augmenting its win total from zero to two wins. But the losing malady afflicting Hamilton football refused to relent, and the 2004 and 2005 seasons brought consecutive 1-7 records and cruelly squashed any hopes generated by 2003's baby-step improvement.
Why is Hamilton's football impotence even remotely relevant? About two weeks ago, Hamilton administrators decided they had witnessed enough losing. The college fired Alvanos and Defensive Coordinator John Keady, and Offensive Coordinator Corey Wenger will not be invited back after his contract expires in the spring, so in effect he was fired too. Hamilton is retaining Wenger in the interim period just to oversee recruitment in the absence of Alvanos and Keady, who were told to empty their desks immediately. In other words, two weeks ago Hamilton fired its entire football leadership. This sort of news (which I obtained from the Hamilton student newspaper, The Spectator, and from a Hamilton student) is surprising primarily because Hamilton, last I checked, plays not in the Big Ten, but in the NESCAC, where less than stellar team performances rarely induce massive coaching staff firings. Also, several Hamilton players noted that Alvanos served as a sort of academic mentor-a trait that, in the NESCAC, would perhaps partially redeem perennial losing. But wait, you might say, Hamilton's football woes are not normal woes; they are so pronounced, so prolonged and steeped in a history of wretchedness that even in the NESCAC they warrant the dismissal of everyone conceivably to blame for such meager output. Fine.
There still is a problem with these firings. Keady served not only as the Defensive Coordinator for the football team-he also was the head coach of the Hamilton baseball team. Hamilton, in need of a baseball coach, had hired in-house and allowed Keady to hold two coaching jobs; such a scenario is not uncommon in college athletic departments. Now, though, Hamilton says that because Keady's baseball role was secondary to his football responsibility, his dismissal as Defensive Coordinator justifies his firing from the baseball team. So Keady is left without a job. If Keady's wife and two children are not reason enough for Hamilton to err on the side of at least partial employment, then consider that last year the Hamilton baseball team, under Keady, posted the third highest win total in its 121-year history. From a purely logistical perspective, the baseball Continentals are without a coach just over three months before their Spring Break trip and the beginning of the season. Moreover, the Hamilton administration has badly mismanaged this episode. Before the Spectator article was published, no one had told the baseball team that Keady would not coach this spring. Further, for Athletic Director Dave Thompson to publicly call Keady's baseball employment secondary is rather unprofessional. You hire a coach with your full endorsement or not at all, and that coach should be judged on his performance in that capacity. He should not be subjected to contingency on a separate "primary" job.
Scheduling school spirit
Amherst's basketball teams-particularly the men's team-garner the most student support of any teams at the College, and rightfully so. The atmosphere in LeFrak Gymnasium during last year's game against Williams College was an admirable display of athletically-focused school spirit, which is always a desirable trait for a college, especially a small college with a fierce rivalry. Fans enjoy the opportunity to watch the team in NESCAC competition, out-of-conference games, or in the NCAA Tournament. The College-particularly the athletic department-should encourage crowd enthusiasm at home basketball games. It is unfortunate, then, that the College schedules many home basketball games when most of the student body is off-campus during vacation periods. The team, understandably, needs to begin its schedule while the rest of us are away for Thanksgiving Break, and presumably Amherst must subscribe to outside rules governing the scheduling of the NCAA Tournament games, which always seem to coincide with Spring Break. But what about the home game against Williams? This year, the game at Williams counts for the NESCAC standings, so the home game against the Ephs will, justifiably, draw less crowd support than the game in Williamstown, Mass. Why, though, does the home game against Williams have to occur on Jan. 7, in the middle of Interterm? Can't that game be held at any point before the Feb. 3 game at Williams? If so, shouldn't the College make an effort to schedule the home game at a time when we can watch it?
The Rhode to the top
In September, Golf Digest published its first-ever college rankings of the best schools for college golf. The magazine divided the colleges into three categories: "golf first," "academics first," and a combination. The Amherst men's golf program ranked 24th on the "academics first" list, behind Williams and Middlebury, among others. I wonder if next year's rankings will take into account last week's announcement that Amherst golf veteran Dan Altschuler '04 was among the 32 students nationwide who received Rhodes Scholarships.