Last
week the Star Tribune ran an article http://www.startribune.com/miac-rivals-plot-ouster-of-st-thomas/508145182/
saying that the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Presidents
will consider whether to expel St. Thomas from the conference on April 18. A final vote is schdeuld for May.
The
article generated much interest. Over
600 comments were shared. I read every
one.
As
a proud Carleton football alumni (captain and all-conference on the 1985 team) I
watch this with great interest. I go to one or two Carleton games a year and attend every football alumni gathering. I've often stood up for Carleton athletics no matter what ridicule I've received.
Losing to St. Thomas has unfortunately been part of Carleton’s recent history. This last year Carleton lost 68-0.
I was part of the
Carleton football teams when Carleton moved from the Midwest Conference to the
MIAC. During my freshmen year Carleton almost won the Midwest Conference in
football. We had a better team during my
sophomore year. Our revered coach, Bob
Sullivan prepared our team for the rigors of moving into the MIAC. In fact he
helped engineer the move.
The
first conference game Carleton had was under the lights at St. Thomas. I was convinced that Carleton was going to
win—how could I not? And—we were smacked—35-0. Two starting players were injured for the
year; one of those never played again.
Even worse the players on St. Thomas enjoyed rubbing their success in
our faces.
I
have great respect for the excellence of the St. Thomas football program. They consistently win the MIAC. And though they’ve never won the Division III
football championship they competed in the championship in 2012.
Excellence
should be rewarded and not punished.
That’s
why I think the better route for Carleton would be to leave the MIAC in
football instead of kicking St. Thomas out of the conference. Macalester took the route of leaving the MIAC a few years
ago. Bob Sullivan shared with me a plan once
that would have Carleton compete in a football conference with
Augsburg, Hamline, Macalester, St. Olaf, Northwestern, St. Scholastica and
some others.
Personally, I wish Carleton had the type of football program where it could compete with
St. Thomas. Is it possible? Yes.
Bethel has had success in football over the past 25 years and beat St.
Thomas this past year. Is this
probable? No.
Is
it Carleton’s fault that we can’t compete with St. Thomas in football? Yes. I’ve
written in this blog before that I wish the administration would invest more in
football at Carleton. Right now Carleton
has an outstanding coach, Tom Journell, who is rebuilding the program in the
right way. KeepStackin!
St. Thomas could decide themselves that they want to leave the MIAC for a different conference and different division. Some think that this should happen.
But it doesn't appear that St. Thomas wants to leave the MIAC.
The
key question for me is how any move affects the players. Any young man who plays football for a
Division III school deserves to have the highest quality experience. Players who compete in the rigors of football
deserve the possibility of winning.
Rarely should a player walk on the field knowing that most likely they
are going to lose by fifty points. In
talking to Bob Sullivan about this issue he shared that a
school has to have the possibility of winning a championship every so number of
years.
Can
Carleton win a MIAC championship in football once every ten years? Maybe. Carleton played for a championship in
the fall of 2008 and would have been a champion if not for “Gagliardi magic” at
the end of the game.
But
it’s not fair to the players that 99 percent of the public knows that Carleton
is not going to beat St. Thomas or even St. Johns. (It is interesting to me that the antipathy
towards St. Johns is not as great as it is towards St. Thomas. St. Johns has had just as much success in
football as St. Thomas.) Losing
consistently by over sixty points to a school is not fair to the players.
Leaving
the MIAC in football seems to be a better option for Carleton than kicking St.
Thomas out of the conference.
