No. 14 Yale eliminated by No. 3 Purdue with 78–56 loss

No. 14 Yale (19–12, 11–3 Ivy) fell to No. 3 Purdue (28–7, 14–6 Big Ten) in its first-round March Madness matchup on Friday, 78–56.

The Bulldogs owned an early 16–15 lead seven minutes into the first half until Purdue’s size and post-play allowed it to build an advantage with free throws and points in the paint. Down 13 at halftime, Yale cut the deficit to single digits with two quick baskets after the break before a nine-minute scoring drought put the game out of reach.

Purdue guard Jaden Ivey, a projected top-five pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, led the Boilermakers with 22 points, while their 7-foot-4 center Zach Edey added 16 points, half of which came at the free-throw line. Yale guard Azar Swain ’22, who set a record in the modern era of program history by playing his 121st career game on Friday, started hot and scored 11 points in the first seven minutes. He ended the game with a team-high 18 points.

At halftime, No. 3 Purdue leads No. 14 Yale, 46–33

No. 14 Yale trails No. 3 Purdue, 46–33, at halftime of their first-round NCAA Tournament matchup.

Purdue guard Jaden Ivey and center Zach Edey were the driving forces behind the Boilermakers’ play in the first, as the two combined for 31 of the team’s 46 points. Ivey scored 18 points, most of them early in the half, as Purdue leaned on its interior size advantage to draw fouls and outscore the Elis in the paint, 20–8.

Purdue attempted 19 free throws in the first, making 14. Yale attempted 0. The Bulldogs were led by 13 points from guard Azar Swain ’22 and efficient bursts of offense from forward Matt Knowling ’24 and guard August Mahoney ’24 later in the half.

Azar Swain will set another major program record at March Madness: career appearances

Yale men’s basketball guard Azar Swain ’22 enters March Madness as the Bulldogs’ all-time leading three-point scorer in the record books and their go-to offensive option on the court.

On Friday, when the No. 14 Bulldogs take on No. 3 Purdue, he will top another major statistical category with the most recorded appearances in a Yale career: 121 games.

Yale played its first game of basketball in December 1895 — it won on the road at the Waterbury, Connecticut YMCA — and never had anyone play 120 career games for the Blue and White until two-time Ivy League Player of the Year Justin Sears ’16. Two games at Ivy Madness last weekend tied Swain and Sears at 120 appearances. When the guard starts his 31st contest of the season Friday afternoon at the Fiserv Forum, he will hold the new program best.

No. 14 Yale set for No. 3 Purdue in first round of March Madness

MILWAUKEE — It all happens quickly in March. The Yale men’s basketball team learned its NCAA Tournament seed and opponent just a few hours after beating Princeton in the Ivy Madness championship last Sunday, made it back to New Haven for two days and then took a chartered flight from Hartford to Milwaukee on Wednesday.

The Bulldogs practiced in the Milwaukee Bucks training facility after landing, and on Thursday morning, they took to the real court — across the street at Fiserv Forum — where first-round March Madness action will tip off on Friday.

“In terms of the celebration, it was fast and furious,” Yale head coach James Jones told the media during a Thursday morning press conference at the arena. Bright stage lights shone as he sat on a makeshift stage in front of a backdrop dotted with the NCAA’s March Madness logo. “What’s great about the world now is everything’s on Instagram, so I got to relive some of the moments of my players,” Jones added. By Sunday night, he started watching film on Purdue.

A beginner’s guide to Yale

The Elis experienced an up-and-down start to the year during nonconference play. There were spurts of strong play — they notched a 20-point win over the University of Massachusetts during their first game against a Division I opponent, scoring over 54 percent from the field — interspersed with subpar performances. Slow starts in the first half, and particularly the few minutes following tipoff, emerged as an issue during some games. Yale came back to beat lesser-ranked Lehigh in early December but did not complete a similar comeback against Stony Brook earlier in the week, falling to the Seawolves at home in what the NCAA’s NET ranking metric considers Yale’s worst defeat of the season. After a mid-December loss to Monmouth, the thirteenth game of the season, Yale head coach James Jones and players expressed a similar sentiment: the Bulldogs, then 6–7, were not performing to their full potential.

What you need to know about Yale’s first-round opponent, Purdue

The Yale men’s basketball team is flying to Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Wednesday for March Madness. Making their third appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2016, the No. 14 Bulldogs (19–11, 11–3 Ivy) will face No. 3 Purdue (27–7, 14–6 Big Ten) Friday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.

Purdue is making its seventh-straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the sixth longest active streak in the sport. Purdue head coach Matt Painter has been at the helm for the Boilermakers since 2005 and is making his 14th trip to the Big Dance.

Here is the rundown on Yale’s first-round opponent.

Yale receives No. 14 March Madness seed, will face No. 3 Purdue Friday in Milwaukee

After taking down Princeton in the Ivy Madness championship Sunday afternoon, Yale players did not have much time to sit around before the NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed.

By the time they left Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion — after celebrating on the court, snipping down the net and greeting head coach James Jones in the locker room with a water shower — Yale only had a couple hours before learning their seed and first-round opponent.

But once CBS host Greg Gumbel began unveiling the bracket on the Selection Sunday show at 6 p.m., Yale waited and waited. The Bulldogs remained in Boston to tune into the bracket reveal before returning to New Haven, watching on a television hanging from the ceiling in a room at Del Frisco’s Steakhouse in Back Bay.

IN PHOTOS: Yale men’s basketball wins Ivy Madness, bid to NCAA Tournament

Off to the Big Dance: No. 2 Yale advances to March Madness after defeating No. 1 Princeton, 66–64

The Yale men’s basketball team is going dancing.

With a 66–64 win over first-seeded Princeton (23–6, 12–2) Sunday afternoon in the Ivy Madness final, second-seeded Yale (19–11, 11–3) claimed the Ivy League Tournament championship and punched its ticket to March Madness.

Yale has now won two consecutive Ivy Madness tournaments. The Bulldogs will compete in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019, which is the last time an Ivy League team appeared in the bracket after the conference took a yearlong hiatus from competitive athletics during the pandemic in 2020–21.

Yale guard Azar Swain ’22 scored a game-high 23 points as the Bulldog defense held Princeton’s strong three-point shooters in check for most of the game. Swain, who took a leave of absence last year to preserve his final season of Ivy League eligibility, was named the Most Outstanding Player of Ivy Madness.

Yale’s comparably outdated facilities affect more than just the development of its swimmers, however. Potential recruits may favor other more modern facilities over the Exhibition Pool and turn their backs on the Blue and White. 

According to Karl Ortegon, senior reporter at SwimSwam and former swimmer at Wesleyan University, “A bad pool is no fun.” 

“For recruits, it’s definitely easier to dazzle them with a nice new facility,” Ortegon said. ”If a pool is really bad, that could be a deciding factor if a swimmer is choosing between two or three schools that are very similar.”

While Ortegon believes that other factors, such as the program’s coaching staff and reputation, are more important in a swimmer’s college selection process, “A bad pool ruled out a couple of schools [for] myself.” 

As NCAA and Ivy League championship specifications require pools to have at least eight 50-meter lanes, there are currently only three programs in the Ivy League — Harvard, Princeton and Brown — who are able to host championship meets. According to alumni and current swimmers, if Yale were to build a new championship specification facility, it not only would be able to attract top talent from around the nation, but would also again be able to draw the fastest of the Ancient Eight to New Haven. 

Benefits to New Haven

A new natatorium has the potential to not only change the fortunes of Yale swimmers and divers, but also those of the surrounding New Haven community. 

According to the USA Swimming Foundation, 10 people drown each day in the United States, while 64 percent of African American, 45 percent of Hispanic/Latino and 40 percent of Caucasian children have little to no swimming ability. 

Twice a year, alumni and swimming and diving team members volunteer their time to teach local children aged 4 to 18 how to swim. The Diekmann/Green Swim New Haven program works with the Boys and Girls Club of New Haven, Saint Martin de Porres Academy, New Haven Age Group Track Club and the University community to help children overcome their fear of water and teach them how to move safely through the water.

An article in the winter 2015 issue of ELI made available on the Yale Athletics website and a 2015 press release on the Giving to Yale website suggested that a renovation of the Exhibition Pool would likely cost $47 million.

According to members of the steering committee, a separate Yale Bowl facility would likely only cost less than half that sum — around $20 million.

The committee looked to the $19 million Greensboro Aquatic Center in North Carolina as an example that a new championship-specification three-pool facility could be built at a relatively low cost.

“Greensboro is not an architectural masterpiece, but it’s a great swimming facility,” Lawler said. “We were as clear as we could be with the University: You can decide where to put a new facility, but if your decision is a first class pool and out by the Bowl, we will get you to $20 million.”

According to a 2014 News article, following protests from the steering committee over the administration’s unresponsiveness, members of the committee, alongside their swimming and diving association counterparts, sat down with University President Peter Salovey in March 2014 to discuss the pool project. According to the same 2014 News article, during the meeting, Salovey expressed both the University’s commitment to the project and its desire to renovate Payne Whitney, rather than construct a separate facility near Yale Bowl. 

“As I mentioned in our [March] discussion, it is clear that we all want a pool with fast water, a facility that allows us to host Ivy Championships again and that allows our coaches to recruit against our peers,” Salovey said in an April 17, 2014, letter to Lawler obtained by the News. “We also want to support the broader athletic needs of Yale, and building a new pool at Payne Whitney is the best location for us to achieve these goals.”

Shortly after the March meeting, the pool renovation was added to the University’s list of approved capital projects, according to steering committee member Clark.

In the early 2000s, Brown University, prior to the construction of the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatic Center, similarly considered a renovation of the old Smith Swim Center, rather than a total replacement.

“The Smith Swim Center was built in 1973 and was in fair condition given its age at the time of the assessment,” Nylander, principal at aquatic design firm Counsilman-Hunsaker, said. “There were components that didn’t meet current code standards, such as the deep end floor slope, or NCAA regulations, such as the overhead lighting which was approximately 20 percent of the recommended levels. A major renovation would have required the aquatic center to be brought up to current regulatory requirements and necessitated nearly 90 percent removal of the old pool shell.”

The new Brown natatorium cost approximately $27 million 10 years ago — almost $31 million when adjusted for inflation.

Since the March 2014 meeting with Salovey, the stance on renovation versus reconstruction seems to have shifted.  

According to swimming and diving association president Meade, the University’s focus has moved away from a renovation of the Exhibition Pool towards the construction of a new natatorium in the vicinity of Ingalls Rink and the Yale Health Center. Meade said that the swimming and diving association has been scouting out the area as a potential location and that the association continues to meet regularly with the Yale administration about the plans. This would help to alleviate concerns of inadequate structural integrity in Payne Whitney for a renovation of the scale necessary, minimize disruptions to the season during construction and keep the pool in walking distance from most of campus. 

“The Exhibition Pool is like a sports car. That 1932 car, you can do as much as you want to, but it’s not going to ever be a 2021 sports car,” Meade said. “I think a new facility is in the best interest of the program.”

That facility would likely cost at least $50 million, according to Meade, putting it in the same range as the Exhibition Pool renovation and making it one of the most expensive natatoriums in the nation.  

Administration and delays

In February 2018, Vicky Chun became Yale’s director of athletics, replacing Tom Beckett, who served in the role for more than 24 years. With a new director at the helm, some alumni began to feel more hopeful about the eventual completion of the project. 

According to Meade, Chun “made it very clear from the day she started that building a new pool was her number one priority.”

Director of Athletics Vicky Chun did not respond to questions from the News on where exactly the pool stands in her list of capital priorities, whether a site had been selected or whether a projected timeline exists for the project. She also did not provide an answer to whether the current Exhibition Pool is a liability or asset to the swimming and diving program. 

“Capital projects and fundraising have been at the forefront of our goals for Yale Athletics,” Chun wrote in an email to the News. “In less than three years, we have made tremendous progress on those fronts which includes donor funding for new video boards, playing surfaces, locker rooms and training venues. While we continue to create new spaces and facilities, we also continue to identify areas of need for our historic athletics program and develop sound strategies on how to address them; including a competition pool.”

Former swimmer Todd Kaplan ’86 pledged $1 million to the pool project several years ago. Growing up in North Haven, he first swam at the Exhibition Pool at the age of 11. Two years later, he began training there and continued to do so through college. Like many other alumni, his pledge was motivated by a desire to expand water access and education to the New Haven community and to update the University’s obsolete aquatic facility.

“I believe that the many people at Yale focused on this project have done a fine job — and I know that the athletic department and the development office are both working hard to bring this together,” Kaplan wrote in an email to the News. “This effort is expensive and complex — there are many other needs at Yale — and I believe that everyone involved wants this project to become a reality soon.”

However, not everyone shares in Kaplan’s appreciation of the University’s handling of the pool project. 

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Steve Clark ’65 feels that the University’s lack of communication and coordination with swimming alumni and its “insistence on gold plating cost estimates for every option — despite reasonably priced two and three pool aquatic facilities already constructed elsewhere in the country — has seriously deterred potential donors.

“As far as I know, there is no fixed plan. I don’t know how you can raise money when there’s no official plan and drawings to persuade people to put their money toward,” Clark said.

Former swimmer and water polo player Ted Jones ’64 has been “squarely behind the new pool and [has been] angry with the University for a decade or more on their foot-dragging.” And for former swimmer Alex Righi ’09, the pool development plans are being implemented “far too slowly.”

“It’s been frustrating to see Yale let actual development of a new pool flounder for so long and, despite its many billions in endowment, put much of the onus on the swimming team alumni and/or beneficent university donors to fund the multiple millions required for a new pool,” Righi said. “My hope is that the athletic administration continues its efforts to finalize plans for a new competition pool and that the broader Yale university administration prioritizes funding the project, at least in significant part, and constructing it as soon as possible — I fear that anything less will be a major impediment to Yale’s ability to truly compete athletically with its peer institutions.”

Some alumni have also voiced concerns about the administration’s handling of early donations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not made reaching the $50 million fundraising target any easier, with no new donors having been secured since last spring, according to Meade. Still, he has received emails and calls from interested parties and has, as per standard practice, passed along their information to Yale Athletics. 

Despite years of alumni-led fundraising and seven years of official University guidance, the project has also failed in its efforts to attract an eight-figure lead donor. 

“I know it’s been a source of frustration; we have a very passionate group of alumni, who, you know, want to see this pool built more than anything, and I certainly understand their frustration and their desire to turn this program, turn this facility into the best possible opportunity for Yale to succeed in the pool — in diving, swimming and water polo,” Meade said.

According to Kristin Krebs-Dick ’93, former president of the swimming and diving association, the University is continuing to work with “Fast Water” — a subcommittee of the association currently consisting of herself, Kaplan, Rapuano, Melanie Ginter ’78 and Casey Whalen ’96 — to work out the best solution for a new aquatic facility. 

Still, it remains unclear how many more years the program, the University and the greater New Haven community will wait for a new pool. With every passing year the Exhibition Pool only grows older, becoming more expensive to maintain and increasingly outdated in the ever-changing landscape of competitive swimming and diving. 

“I’d like to see [a new Yale pool] in my lifetime, hopefully,” Meade said.  

Ryan Chiao | ryan.chiao@yale.edu

Correction, Apr. 22: An earlier version of this story said that O’Neill did not respond to a request for comment. In fact, the News did not reach out to her for comment. The News regrets the error.

UP CLOSE:
Athletic recruiting in the year without sports

Story by Margaret Hedeman

Cover Photo by Vaibhav Sharma

Published on September 16, 2020

Every head turned toward Director of Athletics Vicky Chun as she advanced across Reese Stadium on March 11 toward Andy Shay, the Yale men’s lacrosse head coach. It was a clear, mild afternoon in the stadium, and attackman Matt Brandau ’23 stood beside a teammate, exchanging nervous glances.

Five minutes later, Chun and Shay emerged from a team room underneath the bleachers.

“I can’t really describe the feeling in the huddle when he said, ‘It’s over, we’re done,’ other than there was a mix of tears right away — guys throwing gloves; some guys were angry,” Brandau said. “Athletic Director Chun tried to console us, but I think everyone was so glazed over that we weren’t really absorbing her words.”

Most spring Ivy League student-athletes say that it is easy to remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they received the news that was released at 3 p.m. on March 11, 2020. That news, of course, marked the end of Ancient Eight spring athletics. In July, the League terminated all intercollegiate athletic competition sports until at least the 2021 calendar year.

Now, the athletic community has just begun to grasp the real possibility of the COVID-19 pandemic affecting college athletics far beyond the spring of 2020.

From lacrosse to basketball to fencing, collegiate sports recruiting is entering a whole new landscape. Over the years, the athletic community had settled on a comfortable recruiting timeline: scouting, visits, checks with admissions, commitment, application and acceptance. But with a deadly virus in the picture, this is no longer sustainable. 

“I can’t really describe the feeling in the huddle when he said, “It’s over, we’re done,” other than there was a mix of tears right away — guys throwing gloves; some guys were angry, Athletic Director Chun tried to console us, but I think everyone was so glazed over that we weren’t really absorbing her words.”

—Matt Brandau ’23, men's lacrosse attackman

THE DEAD PERIOD

Shortly after the cancellation of the spring athletic season, the NCAA introduced another drastic change when it implemented a recruiting “dead period” — a prescribed duration of time during which no in-person recruiting is allowed. The Division I Council Coordination Committee placed this immediate ban on March 13, and the Council has met virtually to extend the dead period multiple times since then. Currently, there is no in-person recruiting allowed through Sept. 30. According to Maia Dreyer, the founder of Three 4 Three — a consulting agency for high school athletes looking to get recruited in college — the dead period will most likely continue to be extended through the end of this calendar year.

While virtual recruiting  — such as Zoom meetings or phone calls — can still take place, this extension changes the game for prospective athletes and coaches.

“My 2021 high school kids, what they have had to do is visit college campuses but not meet with the coaches in person, and they do not get to meet the team,” Dreyer said. “Three of my juniors have committed to schools without being face-to-face with the coaches … So, there are ways to do it, and it is being done, it’s just not ideal.”

On the other end of recruiting conversations, coaches are also attempting to make the process as seamless as possible despite major setbacks.

With the dead period in place, the lack of in-person visits has been a major source of frustration for Steve Gladstone, the Yale heavyweight crew team head coach.

“The critical piece is that [recruits] get a sense of what it would be like to be a student at Yale and an oarsman, of course,” Gladstone said. “I think one of our significant advantages is the energy of our squad. Anybody that comes down on a recruiting visit and watches one of our practices, it’s going to mark them. We can have lots of discussions and Zoom calls and so on, but for them to actually have a palpable sense or feel for our squad is eliminated.”

Gladstone said he relies heavily on his crew to provide feedback on prospective athletes, given that the presentation recruits put on in front of coaches disappears when interacting with the team. Interaction with current squad members, which helps determine which prospective athletes might get a spot, is now gone.

Claudia Chang, a swim recruit for the class of 2025, managed to narrowly escape this problem –– she visited and committed to Yale shortly before the dead period was implemented.

“I feel very fortunate that I was able to make my decision and be on campus before this whole pandemic,” Chang said. “Seeing how the team works and the team environment was super important to me. I had some friends who didn’t get a chance to visit before COVID. They have visited campus and gotten the chance to meet with a few swimmers, but I think they are definitely disappointed that they didn’t get a chance to go on an official and meet the whole team.”

“Anybody that comes down on a recruiting visit and watches one of our practices, it’s going to mark them. We can have lots of discussions and Zoom calls and so on, but for them to actually have a palpable sense or feel for our squad is eliminated.”

—Steve Gladstone, head coach of the Yale heavyweight crew team

A LACK OF VISIBILITY

In addition to the ban on in-person visits, the disappearance of high school sporting events across the country also makes the recruiting process more difficult. 

Student-athletes who participate in sports such as track, swimming and rowing often rely on personal records or times to secure support from a coach. Without the opportunity to achieve those goals, getting recruited is challenging. Similarly, without games or matches, athletes have fewer opportunities to showcase their skills — they may have a shorter highlight reel or worse statistics to present to a recruiter.

For a swimmer like Alex Deng, who committed to Yale for the class of 2025 in August, the lack of swim meets abruptly halted his recruiting journey last March. Without the opportunity to record personal bests, it was difficult for the prospective student-athlete to demonstrate that he deserved a spot at Yale.

“Everything was running pretty smoothly up until COVID hit, and that’s when things started really slowing down for me because there were no meets, all swimming was at a halt and coaches had to focus on their own swimmers,” Deng said. “It went kind of 100 to zero pretty quick for me … I was very anxious about it.”

As the future of both high school and college athletics is unclear, coaches said they are forced to rely on old results or videos. Selecting athletes becomes much more of a gamble.

Geographic disparities also present an unforeseen complication in recruitment. As states make their own decisions on whether to allow athletic events, high school athletes from high-risk areas are faced with an additional burden. 

The Minnesota Department of Health allowed athletic activities to resume on June 24 for outdoor sports and June 1 for indoor sports. On the other hand, the California Interscholastic Federation announced on July 20 that the start of the high school sports season will be delayed until December or January. 

Chang noted this disparity in opportunities for athletes in various states and said it could affect coaches’ ability to assess one’s performance — especially for sports that tend to recruit later, such as swimming.

“I definitely think it’s a hard situation because every state is so different, so some swimmers have had the opportunities to swim at meets and get their best times and others haven’t,” Chang said. “I think it could definitely help some swimmers and hurt others, but hopefully the college coaches would be able to do a pretty good job of using their experience to predict how an athlete will do in college.”

ACADEMIC TESTING CHANGES

As colleges adapt their general admissions procedures to the ongoing pandemic, prospective student-athletes are also forced to navigate an environment with changing academic requirements.

Due to potential COVID exposure during ACT and SAT testing, the NCAA and the Ivy League have both relieved student-athletes of  the requirement for a standardized testing score. All Ivy League institutions have also released individual statements that they do not require any student, athlete or not, to submit a standardized testing score. 

“Like all applicants, prospective student-athletes are encouraged, but not required to submit the results of any standardized tests they have taken to date,” the Ivy League announced on its website. “Full consideration will be given to all applicants, regardless of whether they have the opportunity to take a standardized test.”

Though Chang achieved a high enough score on her standardized test before COVID struck, her peers have experienced trouble when scheduling tests. She added that the fact that many college applications are test-optional does not change much, given that many of her peers are still planning on somehow finding a time and place to take it. 

Dreyer also reasoned why many high school athletes are still trying to secure a score.

“A lot of kids didn’t have the score they needed … but a great score could definitely tip the scales in your favor and help if your transcript wasn’t super strong,” Dreyer said.

EFFECTS ON VARSITY PROGRAMS

On top of challenges with recruitment, the number of incoming first-year athletes taking gap years makes the future of Yale athletics more unpredictable. 

Historically, when a first-year student-athlete takes a gap year, they end up stripping an unsuspecting potential recruit of a spot. Every varsity program at Yale has a limited number of spots for recruits in a given class.

Jack Stuzin ’24, a defenseman for the Yale men’s lacrosse team, told the News that he decided against a gap year partly for this reason. 

“I was close to taking a gap year,” Stuzin said. “But I didn’t want to put anybody in the position in the grade below me where I was taking up a recruiting spot because I know if I were in that situation I would be pretty bummed about it.”

Despite the recruiting policy, Stuzin said his coaches and athletics staff did not encourage or discourage him to take a gap year. Both Gladstone and head volleyball coach Erin Appleman said they feel that the decision to take time away from Yale is a personal one.

When asked about this policy, the Yale Athletics Compliance Office deferred responsibility for admissions decisions of student-athletes to the Admissions Office. The Compliance Office is comprised of two staff members, Jason Strong and Katie Tortorici, who help Yale athletic affiliates adhere to NCAA, Ivy League and Yale rules.

“The athletic department works closely with the Office of Admission each year regarding its support of prospective student-athletes,” a representative from the Compliance Office wrote in an email to the News. “All admissions decisions reside within the Office of Admission.”

The Compliance Office also added that Yale does not require first years, including student-athletes, to reapply for admissions even if they are taking a gap year. 

Though Gladstone was under the impression that first years taking the year off would result in fewer recruiting spots for the collegiate class of 2025, both Gladstone and Dreyer emphasized that change is always imminent and nothing is certain.

“I think at this time with all things, they’re in flux. And it’s not because people are incompetent in the leadership positions, but there are so many moving parts that they can’t give us an exact figure.”

—Steve Gladstone, head coach of the Yale heavyweight crew team

“I think at this time with all things, they’re in flux,” Gladstone said. “And it’s not because people are incompetent in the leadership positions, but there are so many moving parts that they can’t give us an exact figure.”

Dreyer added that each school and conference is different, and the NCAA has been making unprecedented changes to adapt to the ongoing pandemic.

When the News inquired about student-athletes’ plans, the Yale athletic department declined to comment on individual students’ decisions.

“We cannot comment on student-athletes’ decisions on leaves or deferrals and the numbers that have or have not done so due to several HIPPA and NCAA standards,” Associate Athletic Director Mike Gambardella said in an email to the News.

With athletes taking time off, team size will also likely change, potentially resulting in drastic roster imbalances. Gladstone predicted that his team will grow in the coming years. But in three years, depending on how many of his incoming first-years take time off, he said he might have a smaller senior class.

Gladstone also expects bigger schools to have an enormous advantage over the Ivies if there were to be a competitive season this spring.

Many rowers at other Ivy Leagues, such as Harvard, are following the trend and taking time off, according to Gladstone. Because there will be fewer rowers on both teams, the playing field might be more level with the rival Crimson than with the likes of the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley — two strong heavyweight rowing competitors.

While Yale’s Athletic Department did not comment on how students taking a leave of absence might affect team size, Princeton’s Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan said that her department is working with its admission office to manage roster sizes and support opportunities for recruits.

“Maintaining manageable roster sizes in each class year is always very important, as we are focused on providing a highly meaningful experience for all of our student-athletes,” Marcoux Samaan wrote in an email to the News. “As our coaches have navigated the current challenges, I am proud of how they have continuously put the individual needs of each student-athlete front and center.”

Moreover, the future of these recruits rely on collegiate athletes’ plans to either defer or enroll because some specialty positions are only recruited every other year. When a talented player takes a leave of absence, they will likely be encouraged to utilize their year of extra eligibility. But this also means that this position will not be needed on the team for at least another season.

One of Dreyer’s clients is a volleyball setter in the high school class of 2022. Under normal circumstances, a volleyball coach would recruit a setter every two years. However, since a current setter may have the option to stay another year, that position may no longer be needed for the college class of 2026.

“It’s important to know if they need one or not, and [the recruit] is kind of in a tough situation because they don’t know,” Dreyer said. “Are they going to need my position, or are they going to keep a senior an extra year that’s my position and not need me?”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The athletics community at large remains unsure of what the next few months, possibly years, hold.

Still, although the future remains speculative, the head coach of the Yale volleyball team, Erin Appleman, said she is focused on the situation at hand.

“There are student-athletes on campus, there are student-athletes in New Haven, there are student-athletes at home, there are student-athletes that are taking a leave of absence, and it’s honestly getting a little confusing to keep track of what category everyone is in.”

—Erin Appleman, head coach of the Yale volleyball team

“There are student-athletes on campus, there are student-athletes in New Haven, there are student-athletes at home, there are student-athletes that are taking a leave of absence, and it’s honestly getting a little confusing to keep track of what category everyone is in,” Appleman said. “We don’t really know everything about admissions at this point in time. We’re excited about starting whatever part of the season we can start.”

Many athletes interviewed by the News also remain optimistic. Stuzin, a first-year on the men’s lacrosse team, acknowledged his coaches and upperclassmen teammates’ efforts to keep things running smoothly and the team in shape.

“I think with us it’s always work hard really no matter who’s watching, and the older guys have done an unbelievable job of getting first-years acclimated,” Stuzin said. “Unbelievable job is an understatement. We’re not [in New Haven] right now, or at least some of us aren’t there right now, but they are making a team atmosphere … Once we are finally together it’s going to be a pretty seamless transition.”

For those who are enrolled in New Haven, the Ivy League has introduced a three-phased approach for return to play, which will progress depending on public health conditions. The plan begins with individual and small group workouts and will ramp up to larger group practices.

For now, coaches and athletes are waiting to see the outcome of phase one, which will commence following this week’s medical examinations of the student-athletes. Phase one is run by the strength and conditioning program, not by the sport’s individual head coaches.

Phase two and three will be rolled out as conditions permit.

“The policies and procedures put forth are designed to welcome our Bulldogs back to campus and put them in position to succeed while keeping health and safety at the forefront,” Athletic Director Vicky Chun wrote to the News. “There will be more challenges ahead but we will face them head on; just as we have done in the past.”

Chun also expressed gratitude for the Yale administration’s meticulous planning for return to campus and commitment to the wellbeing of Yale’s student-athletes.

For now, coaches will have to navigate the tricky, ever-changing recruiting landscape in order to prepare for the competitive seasons of the future.

“You don’t really know what’s happening with the scholarship schools, what’s happening around the conference,” Appleman said. “You just try and make good connections with prospective student-athletes … and see if they can find the same love as we all have for Yale University.”

(Yale Daily News)

ANALYSIS:
A shifting demographic for storied Yale crew: International athletes elevate the Elis

International rowers increasingly represent the White and Blue, composing about three times as much of Yale’s three varsity rowing teams as they did 10 years ago.

Story by William McCormack, Drew Beckmen

Data Analysis and Visualization by Ashley Qin

Cover Photo by Sam Rubin ’95

Published on April 24, 2020

At Yale, in the Ivy League and across the country, no college sport maintains as much history as crew.

In 1843, Yale started the first college boat club in America, and on an August day nine years later, the Elis challenged Harvard on the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Their race marked the nation’s first intercollegiate athletic event.

But even for a team with a 177-year history, the game still changes. Over the past decade, all three of Yale’s varsity crew teams — the heavyweight men, the lightweight men and the women — have experienced a demographic shift. Increasingly, international student-athletes are representing the White and Blue, composing about three times more of Yale’s rowing teams as they did 10 years ago.

Although nuanced aspects of each team help account for the international spike, those across the sport — including Yale heavyweight head coach Steve Gladstone, women’s head coach Will Porter and lightweight head coach Andy Card — agreed that rowing tends to be more popular and better supported in countries like Australia, Britain, Germany and New Zealand. Communication between coaches and prospective student-athletes abroad has never been more fluid, and a lack of collegiate rowing options abroad have driven top international talent to Yale and other major programs.

“It’s across college rowing, [but] Yale might get in more,” Penn heavyweight head coach Bryan Volpenhein said. “I think European and international countries have strong rowing programs and a strong rowing culture, and as it becomes more popular, people start to look for ways to continue their rowing. Good rowers are going to look for good programs to go to, and the U.S. has a really strong collegiate system.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Gladstone said he first saw international rowers enter the Ivy League in the late 1980s as the coach at Brown. But the shift has been most significant over the last decade, Gladstone said, especially for the heavyweights. During the 2009–10 school year, international students comprised just over 20 percent of the team. This season, the Yale heavyweights are the most international team on campus — nearly 60 percent of the 2019–20 group hails from countries abroad.

Over the course of the decade, the Yale heavyweight team has also become the most international rowing squad in the Ancient Eight, with Harvard and Princeton falling close behind at 48 and 41.2 percent, respectively. The Crimson heavyweights maintained the greatest international population in 2010 — and nearly every crew in the Ivy League has increased its proportion of international rowers since, including the lightweights and women. Columbia’s crews represent one of the few exceptions.

A little under 10 percent of the Yale lightweight team was international in 2009–10, a figure that has grown to about 25 percent in 2020. The Yale women saw its own proportion of international rowers dip below 10 percent during the 2011–12 school year, but now field a team that is more than 35 percent international.

Heatmap of hometowns of Yale student athletes

At Princeton, the lightweight men’s team is the most geographically diverse in the conference, having undergone a jump in international athletes from under 10 percent in 2010 to 35 percent in 2020. In the league as a whole, Yale has the fourth most international lightweight roster, mere percentage points behind Penn and Brown. For women’s teams at Brown and Dartmouth, which both did not feature a single international rower in 2010, the decade has brought a 10 percentage point increase.

Yale crew accounts for many of the international Elis that make Yale’s student-athlete population more international than Yale College as a whole. 11 percent of the College hails from abroad, according to enrollment statistics from the 2018–19 school year, while about 18 percent of athletes are from countries outside the U.S. Athletes make up just under 22 percent of the international student population, while they only comprise about 13 percent of the overall student population.

Heatmap of hometowns of all Yale students

Data analyzed by the News shows that when compared to the College collectively, the proportion of athletes from a host of foreign countries is at least double the proportion of current students from those same areas: Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, South Africa, Switzerland, Israel, Brazil, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Romania, Serbia, Spain, The Netherlands, and Ukraine. The same is true for only one U.S. state, Indiana.

Of all Bulldog varsity squads for the 2019-2020 season, the heavyweight crew team has the highest proportion of international students, and lightweight and women’s crew are also above the average among all teams. Just over half of Yale’s varsity teams (16 out of 31) have a higher international proportion of international students than Yale College as a whole.

Beyond the data

HEAVYWEIGHT CREW: THE MOST INTERNATIONAL TEAM AT YALE

Crew has historically dominated much of the sports scene in countries such as Britain, Australia, Germany and New Zealand. With boat clubs in almost every town, these countries are filled with promising talent. Yale heavyweight crew head coach Gladstone said that many aspiring athletes abroad, especially physically mature males, often turn to crew in the absence of sports such as American football and basketball.

“The traditions have been around for a couple hundred years,” Gladstone said. “I think that’s the explanation. In those countries, rowers can start in the sixth or seventh grade. They start when they are very young.”

Massachusetts native and outgoing 2019–20 lightweight captain Brian O’Donnell ’20, on the other hand, did not start rowing until ninth grade. O’Donnell said he often hears about international collegiate rowers starting the sport earlier than most of their American counterparts, though he said that he lacks any concrete evidence.

Penn coach Vorphenhein, a three-time U.S. Olympian and a gold medalist at the 2004 Games in Athens, told the News he had barely heard of rowing before quickly getting hooked in college. A walk-on at Ohio State, which today fields a club men’s team and a varsity women’s team, Volpenhein began crew at school. He added that many young American rowers are now starting to row as early as their European counterparts — around middle school — as well.

The sport continues to mature in the United States. Gladstone — who arrived at Yale to lead the heavyweight program in August 2010 after immensely successful runs at Brown and Cal Berkeley — called the growth in American boat clubs “exponential.” When he arrived at Cal, there was only one high school rowing program at Berkeley High School. Now, at least eight clubs operate in the Bay Area, he said.

The timing of his arrival at Yale and the subsequent spike in international heavyweight rowers is unlikely to be a coincidence. Under Gladstone, who was already considered one of the best coaches in the country upon his start in New Haven, the heavyweights have emerged as one of the foremost programs in the country. In 2017, the squad captured its first ever International Rowing Association (IRA) national championship, and its dominance continued in 2018 and 2019 with two more IRA crowns.

“Steve is a legendary coach,” O’Donnell said. “He’s probably the greatest rowing coach of all time. He’s in the conversation, if not the greatest coach, so he knows how to turn a program [around] and guys know if Steve’s got control of that program it’s gonna be really well-run … he’s gonna get guys from wherever.”

Yale heavyweight crew head coach Steve Gladstone (Yale Athletics)

The strength of Yale’s program — and its institutional prestige — is a key selling point for international recruits. However, the draw for athletes is not simply the allure of standing atop the podium. Yale, along with its peer institutions, offers an experience unavailable to many international athletes in their home countries. Coaches like Card and Gladstone said collegiate rowing programs abroad are minimal. Because education systems typically do not incorporate athletics, crew training and attending a premier university are often mutually exclusive.

“Think of yourself as a student from Sydney,” Gladstone said. “You want to get a good education because you are a good student and you really love rowing. You can do that in the U.S.”

Since Gladstone’s first foray into international recruiting in the 1980s, technology has also revolutionized communication with potential athletes. Rather than paying for expensive long-distance calls, today’s coaches can access data online from competitions like the World Rowing Junior Championships before narrowing their focus to a select group of prospects that align with the athletic and academic goals of the team.

A DIFFERENT LANDSCAPE FOR LIGHTWEIGHT MEN AND THE WOMEN

On the lightweight side, coaches face unique recruiting challenges. The U18 Junior Championships feature no lightweight events, which deprives coaches like Yale’s Card the opportunity to see all of the upcoming talent in a single venue. Without this centralized platform, Card and his assistants must devise alternative ways to seek out the most promising prospects.

“This means trying to find the lighter kid who can make their high school or club heavyweight team … the over-achieving type who, through skill and guile, can compete against bigger clunkier oarsmen and hold their own,” Card said. “It’s a very bespoke system, we really look at each candidate closely.”

Although the lightweight squad has experienced an increase in foreign student athletes, the proportion remains far lower than that for the Yale heavyweights. To explain the discrepancy, Card cited the disproportionate attention placed on heavyweight rowing in foreign countries. However, with increased program publicity via streaming, Card anticipates an uptick in interest in collegiate lightweight rowing among internationals.

Coaches can now access information about high school rowers worldwide with ease, O’Donnell pointed out. With an internet connection, any prospective Eli can navigate to yalebulldogs.com and fill out a recruiting questionnaire with their academic data, rowing information, ergometer score, and more.

“[Compared to] 10, 20 years ago, one of the biggest things is the way the world’s more connected,” O’Donnell said. “You get the ability to even send videos of kids rowing so you can see how well they row in high school. It makes [it] a whole lot easier to communicate and for guys [to] get in contact with Ivy schools.”

Although men’s rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in America, it has never been associated with the NCAA. However, in 1996, women’s crew became an NCAA-sanctioned sport to help offset inequitable distribution of athletic scholarships prohibited under Title IX. Outside of the Ivy League, Division I women’s crew programs are currently allowed 20 full scholarships.

Before the NCAA’s decision in ’96, the women’s crew landscape looked very similar to the men’s side now, women’s coach Porter said. The Ivy League, Cal and Washington consistently dominated the national rankings. But after the NCAA allowed for the creation of fully-funded women’s programs, the sport exploded.

With well-supported programs popping up at Power Five conference schools such as Stanford, Texas, Michigan and Ohio State, the women’s recruiting landscape changed dramatically at the end of the century. According to Porter, these programs increasingly turned their attention to top international prospects interested in coming to the United States, a trend that has continued over the past two decades.

“Suddenly, you have a huge number of scholarship opportunities for women,” Porter said. “There just were not enough high school girls rowing in America to fill out all those seats, so a lot of those coaches expanded their searches abroad.”

Despite the recent rise, Porter does not expect the upward trend to continue in the coming years. Outside of slight fluctuations from year to year, Porter said he anticipates that the curve will flatten out around its current level.

“I think we’re up and running now on the women’s side,” Porter said. “Recruiting has expanded so much that there’s really nobody out in the world who’s available and not being identified.”

Others are not necessarily so sure, even though numbers each year might ebb and flow with the quality of rowers in a given class. At Penn, where the proportion of international heavyweight rowers has increased more than threefold since 2014, Vorpenhein believes the trend will continue as long as American collegiate rowing remains an attractive option for international athletes. And as O’Donnell put it, “The world’s only becoming more connected, right?”

Regardless of current or future demographics, Yale coaches have a simple goal in whom they hope to attract to New Haven: the best students and the most talented rowers, no matter where they come from.

“The nature of the sport hasn’t changed one iota in my 50 years,” Gladstone said. “The same mentality, the same work ethic, the same way is there. It doesn’t make any difference where these guys come from. The mentality is the same, and to me, that’s refreshing. It’s not refreshing, it speaks to human nature in these modern times when we talk so much about everyone’s differences. I don’t see it.”

“People often ask, if they’re coming from all over the place, do they bond? You bet they do. And they bond for life.”

About our data analysis

The News conducted a demographic analysis to compare the geographic distribution of the broader Yale student body with that of athletes. The analysis cross references team rosters from the Yale Athletics website with that of locations of the general Yale student population, aggregated at a state and country level to preserve student anonymity and privacy. Students who choose to remove their state or country from the student directory are excluded from the analysis.

MEN'S BASKETBALL: March Madness coverage 2019

Published on March 24, 2019

The Yale men’s basketball team advanced to March Madness for the second time in 57 years. Here is a compilation of the News’ coverage of the Bulldogs’ 2019 Big Dance experience.

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No. 2 Yale advances to March Madness with 97–85 win over No. 1 Harvard

For just the second time in 57 years, Yale men’s basketball earned a berth to the Big Dance.

In a 12-point victory over No. 1 Harvard (18–11, 10–4 Ivy) at John J. Lee Amphitheater, the Bulldogs (22–7, 10–4) built a second-half lead with a 15–0 run to overcome 38 points from Crimson guard Bryce Aiken and persistent foul trouble for guard Miye Oni ’20. Guard Alex Copeland ’19, named the Most Outstanding Player at Ivy Madness, facilitated Yale’s second-period surge and scored a team-high 25 points to help crown the Elis as the 2019 Ivy League Tournament Champions. Oni added 17, guard Azar Swain ’21 scored 15 with stellar three-point shooting and Yale shot over 60 percent to extend an already memorable postseason run.

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For Alex Copeland ’19 and UC Irvine’s Max Hazzard, NCAA tournament berths turn middle-school dream to reality

Yale men’s basketball guard Alex Copeland ’19 knew he needed a good sleep before an Ivy Madness final against Harvard on Sunday. The senior dropped 16 points in a six-point semifinal win over Princeton Saturday afternoon, setting the stage for a Harvard-Yale matchup that would send the Elis to March Madness.

There was only one issue. UC Irvine (30–5, 15–1 Big West) guard Max Hazzard — Copeland’s best friend, former rival in Los Angeles’s Mission League and the Anteaters’ leading scorer — was preparing to lead his then-29-win squad over Cal State Fullerton in the Big West tournament championship, a contest that did not tip off until midnight on the East Coast. The Yale (22–7, 10–4 Ivy) senior, who said he talks with Hazzard every day and tunes into as many Irvine games as he can, settled on a compromise.

“I knew that I had to wake up early for our game against Harvard, so I sent him a really long text right before I went to sleep,” Copeland said. “I ended up waking up at four a.m. and checking it, and I saw that they won. I remember just smiling and feeling so overwhelmed and then going to bed with a smile…When I woke up, I then texted him and we talked a little bit and he said, ‘Hey man, go get it… I’m proud of you, whatever happens today.’”

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What you need to know about Yale’s first round opponent, LSU

The Yale men’s basketball team, for the second time in four years, earned an NCAA tournament berth. After downing rival Harvard in the final of the Ivy League tournament, the Elis earned a 14 seed in the East Regional of March Madness. They then headed to Jacksonville to go toe-to-toe with the third-seeded LSU Tigers, who rank 12th in the country according to the AP Top-25 poll.

In this story, the News highlighted a few things to know about the Bulldogs’ first-round opponent.

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No. 14 Yale earns early respect as trendy upset pick

Although some have grumbled that Yale deserved a thirteen seed, the No. 14 Elis have garnered early attention — from college basketball analysts, average fans and even celebrities  — as a popular upset pick.

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Keys to the Game for Yale-LSU

Last time the Bulldogs made an appearance in the NCAA tournament, they toppled a fifth-seeded Baylor squad and earned the program’s first NCAA tournament victory. With head coach James Jones stating on Wednesday that the postseason will not alter the brand of basketball that Yale will play, there are some specific focuses that could be key in slaying the Bengals of Baton Rouge.

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No. 14 Yale hopes to tame No. 3 LSU Tigers in NCAA tournament

Early Thursday afternoon, Yale men’s basketball head coach James Jones hoped to lead his Bulldogs to another upset victory in only his second career NCAA tournament appearance — and the school’s second in 57 years.

After defeating Princeton and Harvard in New Haven to capture an Ivy Madness crown by scoring a combined 180 points across both games, No. 14 Yale (22–7, 10–4 Ivy) and its high-octane offense will meet the regular season champion out of the SEC, No. 3 LSU (26–6, 16–2 SEC). In attempting to shut down the Tigers and their star sophomore guard Tremont Waters — a New Haven native who Jones recruited — the Bulldogs will meet an athletic squad that has generated hype about its pace, freshmen class and dominance on the offensive glass.

But as Jones pointed out at media day, the Elis have largely held their own against high-major opponents like Miami and No. 1 overall seed Duke while defeating fifth-seeded Baylor back in the 2016 tournament — a win that featured minor contributions from the current senior class — without letting the opponent alter their approach to the game. Jones, in fact, watched the historic 79–75 win over the Bears on his laptop Tuesday night.

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With Yale playing in Jacksonville, Austin Williams ’20 is back home

Of all eight cities hosting opening rounds of the 2019 NCAA tournament, Hartford and its XL Center may have attracted the largest Yale crowd.

In 2016, after all, the Bulldogs (22–7, 10–4 Ivy) played in Providence’s Dunkin’ Donuts Center, drawing a large Bulldog crowd in their 79–75 defeat of Baylor. But after Yale secured its spot in the NCAA tournament Sunday afternoon, forward Austin Williams ’20 had his heart set on another site. And within minutes of the Elis convening to watch CBS’s Selection Sunday show live, Jacksonville native Williams saw his wish realized.

“I was really hoping for [Jacksonville] for sure, just to get a chance to get home and see my friends and family,” Williams said. “And our closest game has been in Miami and a lot of my family didn’t end up being able to make it with work and stuff, so it’ll be a good chance — and the weather is nice.”

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Yale’s postseason run ends after 79–74 tournament loss to No. 3 LSU

In its opening-round NCAA tournament matchup, Yale men’s basketball trailed third-seed LSU 68–62 with just over 60 seconds remaining when the Bulldogs began to foul.

The Tigers (27–6, 16–2 SEC) had hit only 10 of their 18 free throw attempts of the game when guard Miye Oni ’20 fouled Tiger guard Javonte Smart after a great three-point look that spiraled out. So when No. 14 Yale (22–8, 10–4 Ivy) started hacking Tigers on the inbounds, hopes of a late-game takeover remained. After shooting only 4-for-30 from deep for the first 39 minutes, Yale’s rushed pull-up attempts began falling — first it was guard Alex Copeland ’19 on the fast break with 44 seconds to go then forward Jordan Bruner ’20 in the corner. Copeland would hit from deep again while Bruner drained another three-pointer to cut the LSU lead to 77–74 with 12 seconds to play.

But LSU calmly knocked down its shots from the charity stripe down the stretch, shooting nine of 10 from the free throw line in the final minute. After trailing by 16 at halftime, Yale’s sustained second-half comeback and 24 points from Copeland kept the Elis a mere arm’s length from LSU’s lead for much of the period. It forever felt as if Yale was just one key stop and one big shot away from swinging its postseason fate around. LSU benefitted from a balanced attack that included double-doubles for forwards Naz Reid and Kavell Bigby-Williams and 19 points from guard Skylar Mays.

“I’m so proud of this group and just the fight that we showed,” Copeland said. “We were in the locker room at halftime, and I think we were a little down for a moment, but we all kind of came together and told each other, look, we can do this. We can fight back. We’ve been down before, and to come out and battle back like that and put on a show for our fans that were here and that were watching across the country feels amazing.”

The Game 2017

 

Almost every November since 1875, the Harvard and Yale football teams have faced off in an epic rivalry as old as college sports itself. Use the links below to browse the News’ coverage.

Welcome to the 134th rendition of The Game.

COVERAGE

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Team 145 wins The Game, outright Ivy title

For the second straight year, the Yale football team’s season ended with a sea of blue storming the field. But the 134th playing of The Game was still unlike any in recent memory for the Bulldogs. With an emphatic 24–3 victory over Harvard, Yale secured its first outright Ivy League in 37 years.

Scenes from The Game

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Team 145 seeks outright championship

Quarterback Kurt Rawlings ’20 remembers it well. Last season’s dramatic 21–14 upset of Harvard snapped a nine-year losing streak to Yale’s centuries-old archrival, an eternity for a storied football program. But rather than pure euphoria, ecstasy or elation, the sophomore signal-caller recalled a sense of ambivalence.

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Keys to The Game

With at least a share of the Ivy League championship guaranteed, the Yale football team will turn its attention to reaching two more milestones with a victory over Harvard in the 134th edition of The Game. The Bulldogs (8–1, 5–1 Ivy) will look to defeat the Crimson (5–4, 3–3) in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2000 and earn Yale’s first outright conference title since 1980. But for Team 145 to finish its 2017 campaign on a high note, the Elis will need to rely on their powerful run game, contain Justice Shelton-Mosley and be wary of trick plays.

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BY THE NUMBERS: Ivy title race hits final week

For the first time in many years, the Yale football team will take the field for the Harvard-Yale game not only as the favorite, but also as Ivy League champions.  The Yale Undergraduate Sports Analytics Group Football Model currently predicts Yale as an 11-point favorite over Harvard, corresponding to a 73 percent chance of winning The Game.

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A game unlike any other

“Gentlemen, you are about to play football against Harvard. Never again may you do something so important.” The 1923 Bulldogs took head coach Tad Jones’ pre-game speech to heart, blanking Harvard 13–0 to cap off an undefeated season, in the most anticipated athletic event of the year, the mecca of the sport the two schools had nurtured from infancy.

The Harvard-Yale rivalry stretches back beyond the first time the two schools met on the gridiron, to an 1852 crew race, the first intercollegiate athletic competition. One hundred sixty five years later, the two schools maintain the pre-eminent rivalry in collegiate athletics. In that span, both Yale and Harvard have played a crucial role in founding and developing college athletics. Yale takes the credit for the first collegiate rowing club, the four-point crouch for sprinters, the first cheerleaders, starting college hockey and the first 5-on-5 basketball game. Harvard receives plaudits for introducing masks for fencers and baseball catchers, winning the first modern Olympic gold medal, starting field hockey in America and playing the first college soccer game. However, despite all that varied athletic history, the annual football game has attained a special place in arbitrating the fierce rivalry between the schools.

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Dudek looks to cap off stellar first-year campaign

Just one game into his college football career, running back Zane Dudek ’21 found himself making headlines with his trademark blend of elusive and electric running. In his Yale debut against Lehigh, the halfback breached the goal line twice on just a measly nine carries, but that was all he needed to amass a whopping 131 yards on the ground.

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Harvard’s season in review

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Yale’s season in review

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Yale versus Harvard: Fall 2017

See how Yale compared to Harvard in the other fall season matchups this year.

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Position breakdown

Comparing Yale and Harvard football teams, unit by unit.

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Bulldogs embrace team culture

In the wake of Yale’s 35–31 win over Princeton, head coach Tony Reno credited the team’s desire to play to its standards as the impetus behind the comeback victory, considering the Bulldogs once trailed 24–7.

It’s the reason why he gave his team a C-grade following its 56–28 thrashing of Lehigh. It’s the reason why running back Deshawn Salter ’18 answered a 57-yard Cornell touchdown with an 82-yard scoring scamper of his own one play later. It’s the reason why he sees playing Brown (2–7, 0–6 Ivy) as equally important to a date with Dartmouth (7–2, 4–2). But most importantly, it’s the reason why the Elis are on the cusp of winning their first outright Ivy League championship since 1980 when they host Harvard this Saturday.

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SWEEDLER: This one matters

First of all — and I feel silly writing this in the first place, because I think most of you know it already — allow me to dispel the notion that tomorrow’s game does not matter.

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SENIOR COLUMN: Team 145

Committing to play Yale football was the best decision I have ever made. When I walked on campus for summer workouts, I was a lost freshman who was still trying to find his way. I didn’t know I was about to embark on a life-changing journey and meet people who would affect my life forever.

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SENIOR COLUMN: 13 years

After 13 years, my journey with football is coming to an end. Nov 18th is my last stop. I’ve been playing this game for more than 60 percent of my life, and I can genuinely say there aren’t many things I know better than football. Football is a part of who I am and has been a part of my daily ritual for most days these past 13 years. Whether it be practice, film, working out, rehab or watching the NFL on Sunday, football is a sport of true passion and dedication.

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YALE: Tomorrow is unique

While preparing for the Sports Desk’s Yale-Harvard piece, I did what any scholarly columnist ought to do: scoured the web for disparaging Harvard news with which to fill my column. And because every headline was negative, I discovered and prepared to deploy news of the Harvard Institute of Politics granting boy-wiz Sean Spicer a fellowship in the same year that it granted Chelsea Manning one — before buckling under pressure and revoking the latter’s. I read up on how, once again, Harvard’s endowment growth was a lot like the Roman Empire’s: quite impressive before it wasn’t. I was all set to make snide remarks about how Harvard will win a whopping zero fall Ivy League championships.

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HARVARD: Once in a decade

It took 10 years for Yale to beat Harvard once. A single time. Winning can be hard, apparently, but beating the Crimson took the Bulldogs longer than it took the U.S. to build the first continental railroad or Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling or the United Arab Emirates to finish the construction of the Burj Khalifa.

UP CLOSE: Understaffed, Yale sports medicine struggles with student injuries

By Sebastian Kupchaunis

and Matthew Mister

Published on February 23, 2017

After backing up second-team All-Ivy quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 for two seasons, Rafe Chapple ’18 finally got his opportunity: The junior earned the starting job ahead of the Yale football team’s first game in 2016. Chapple would throw five interceptions and complete just 51.2 percent of his passes over his next six quarters before being benched by halftime of the Bulldogs’ Week 2 loss against Cornell.

It would be a month before Chapple learned why his throwing arm had failed him. During the sixth week of the season, Chapple was diagnosed with a partially torn rotator cuff and internal impingement in his throwing shoulder — injuries which had likely plagued him since the beginning of training camp.

“Throwing every day, your shoulder is going to be sore, but I was having problems where I was losing arm strength the first few days of camp,” Chapple said. “Every throw was painful.”

Chapple had sought help in the Yale Athletics training room by the second day of camp in August, telling the athletic trainers that he had never felt so much pain while throwing. The injury was dismissed as fatigue or possible tendonitis. Soon after, a team doctor assured Chapple there was no structural damage in his shoulder and sent him back onto the field with a cortisone shot.

But even with the steroid shot, Chapple said he lacked the arm strength that had carried him to Division I football. Still in close competition for the starting job for which he had worked, the junior felt he had no choice but to keep playing. After losing the starting job, however, his performance deteriorated even further. He did not play again in 2016.

Desperate, Chapple insisted to the athletic trainers after the Week 2 game against Cornell that he undergo an MRI, which neither the trainers nor the team doctor thought was urgent, according to Chapple. The quarterback was handed a two-week waiting time, prompting him to reach out to his parents, who were able to schedule an MRI three days later after several phone calls.

The MRI confirmed the torn rotator cuff and internal impingement, and Yale doctors immediately recommended surgery. Chapple’s parents, however, sought a second opinion and consulted James Andrews, a renowned sports orthopedist who has treated countless professional athletes. According to Chapple, Andrews strongly advised against surgery due to the counterproductive effect it would have on his arm strength, suggesting instead a Platelet-Rich Plasma injection followed by physical therapy.

Chapple has not been the only member of the football team to miss significant time due to injury. Over the past two seasons, the team has seen an unprecedented number of players miss time; by the athletic department’s own count, 42 of the team’s 110 players were either injured or sick by Week 7 of the 2015 season. One quarter of the injured players were out for the season. And by Week 7 of the 2016 season, Yale’s offense had been gutted: A quarterback, a top running back and three of the top six receivers from the Week 1 depth chart were out for the year. Multiple would-be starters never saw the field in 2016, and Team 144 won just three of its 10 games.

“I feel that at any other [Division I] program I’d have been in an MRI the next day,” Chapple said. “I think the sports trainers do the best that they can, but they are just so understaffed. There’s not nearly enough trainers to deal with the entire football team plus all the other sports.”

Interviews with eight current and former injured Yale football players as well as members of the Yale athletic department revealed the extent of the struggle to adequately staff the sports medicine department. Football is a violent game and injuries happen, yet many student-athletes voiced concerns over a lack of sufficient staffing, resources and facilities. While Yale Athletics is aware of some of these issues and has made progress in recent years, including making plans to hire additional trainers, student-athletes say there is more that can be done to preserve the physical well-being of athletes across all of Yale’s varsity teams.

BY THE NUMBERS

Yale has fewer full-time trainers than almost all of its peer institutions. Compared to Yale, which employs 10 full-time athletic trainers currently certified to practice in the state of Connecticut, the other seven Ivy League institutions average 12.1 full-time trainers. Harvard and Cornell have 15 athletic trainers, the most of any Ivy League school, followed by Princeton with 13. Dartmouth, Brown, Penn and Columbia have 12, 11, 10 and nine trainers, respectively.

The National Athletic Trainers’ Association’s Appropriate Medical Coverage for Intercollegiate Athletics provides a recommendation for the number of certified athletic trainers needed by a school. The calculation is based on a multitude of factors, including the number of varsity athletes, travel dates and injury-risk calculations for individual sports.

According to head athletic trainer Jay Cordone, the most recently calculated AMCIA number for Yale is 14.34, which was determined using statistics from the 2014–15 school year. Based on this calculation, Yale would need 15 certified athletic trainers to meet the NATA recommendation. Yet, Yale only employs 10 full-time trainers. The department also employs a part-time athletic trainer, and Director of Sports Medicine Chris Pecora assists the staff though his license in the state expired last July.

Even if Pecora and the part-time trainer were counted, Yale’s number of trainers would still fall below the AMCIA recommendation of 14.34. Still, Yale Director of Athletics Tom Beckett told the News that although the department respects the guidelines, the general consensus among Ivy League schools is that the AMCIA is not applicable because of conference limits on the length of seasons and offseason practices, among other factors.

Pecora and Cordone noted some factors which the AMCIA calculation does not take into account, such as the location of Yale’s athletic facilities. The pair said that the concentration of training facilities at Payne Whitney Gymnasium, Smilow Athletic Complex and Ingalls Rink allows the staff to cover more sports with fewer trainers.

While an advanced degree is not necessarily indicative of quality care, Yale falls short of its peer institutions in the number of athletic trainers with advanced degrees. Six of Yale’s licensed, full-time athletic trainers have master’s degrees, as does Pecora, whereas all of Harvard’s 15 have completed graduate work in athletic training, kinesiology, exercise science, human physiology or strength and conditioning, per Harvard Athletics’ website. According to their athletic departments’ websites, all 12 of Dartmouth’s trainers have master’s degrees and at least eight of Princeton’s 13 trainers have received postgraduate education.

“My suggestion would be [for Yale to add] a full-time rehab coordinator,” said a sports medicine expert with knowledge of the Yale football program, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly. “Most universities have them. They are both physical therapists and athletic trainers, and their job is to focus on rehab [post-operation] and treat injuries that the trainers don’t have a chance to work with.”

While there is not egregious understaffing, there is more that could be done in terms of providing the student-athletes with enough resources, this expert said. A misdiagnosis like Chapple’s would be less likely to slip through the cracks if there were staff whose sole purpose was to follow these injuries and manage their progress, he added.

“If you have enough resources, it lets you focus on those players who are specifically injured, whether it be [preoperative] or postop,” the expert said. “The recovery time is much faster. It takes pressure off the trainers so they can focus on what they need to do.”

Beckett said he began to recognize a need to expand the sports medicine staff in the last three to four years due to an increase in the frequency and intensity of student-athletes’ training, particularly out of season.

He told the News that the department is seeking to hire two trainers and a part-time physical therapist for the 2017–18 academic year. One of the two additional trainers will replace senior athletic trainer Richard Kaplan, who is retiring at the end of the 2016–17 academic year, while the other will bring the department up to 12 trainers.

GETTING TREATMENT

Offensive lineman Khalid Cannon ’17 came to Yale with two torn labra in his shoulders that were sustained in high school and had gone undiagnosed prior to his arrival in New Haven. After experiencing intense shoulder pain during the first week of preseason camp in 2013, Cannon sought out the Yale athletic trainers, who advised he sit out of one practice. Following this day off, Cannon claimed he was never contacted for a follow-up and participated unmonitored in practices going forward.

The lineman became well acquainted with the training room during his four years at Yale while undergoing and recovering from two shoulder surgeries. Ultimately, he grew frustrated with the length of time it took to receive treatment and the lack of attention upon arriving at the training room.

“As a double major in chemistry and geology, I don’t have time to wait around all day,” Cannon said. “Sometimes I’d wait 45 minutes to see a trainer.”

Cannon, who missed four games this season due to injury, is not alone in this sentiment. Experiences like his have shaped the culture of the football team to the point where some players question the benefits of even visiting the training room.

“The overall stigma on the football team is that you don’t want to go in the training room because it’s so busy and packed that you’re not going to be properly attended to,” Chapple said.

Former football captain and linebacker Darius Manora ’17 said the perception among players is that the training room is just a place for those with extremely serious injuries. This notion has prevented players from doing beneficial “prehab,” preventative measures to keep them healthy over the course of their season. Manora saw the lack of trust in the training room as a “vicious cycle,” where players do not get their minor injuries treated, leading to more serious and debilitating developments down the road.

The former captain was misdiagnosed during his junior season, when a wrist injury sustained in Week 4 was deemed a sprain or fracture by the Yale athletic trainers. The trainers put his arm in a cast and Manora played every game that season. After the season finale, Manora learned from an MRI that he instead had torn tendons in his wrist and subsequently underwent an offseason surgery.

The tight schedules of Yale student-athletes and the need to get treatment right before practice create the busy hours that players bemoan. Pecora said that activity in the training room varies on the time of day but that waiting in lines is not unique to Yale.

“There are [busy] times at any training room,” Pecora said. “If it’s an hour before a lot of practices start, [around 4 p.m.], it’s going to be crowded. You could walk into the training room at 1:30 in the afternoon and have no wait time.”

Pecora suggested that players could avoid the prepractice rush by coming in between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to do their necessary rehabilitative work with a team trainer. However, the late-morning and early-afternoon span is often the only block in which athletes can take classes, considering their early-morning workouts and afternoon practices.

“Only having a couple head trainers means it is very difficult to schedule time with them,” Manora said. “They do their best and are very flexible. But with a Yale schedule, it’s very difficult to match those two schedules together.”

In the training room, Cordone serves alongside two assistant athletic trainers, Kaplan and Lindsay Snecinski, and seven interns in sports medicine — although this term does not accurately reflect the group’s credentials. Those listed as interns by Yale Athletics are among the 10 certified Yale trainers, with four of them even holding master’s degrees. Pecora said the intern designation is a University title and simply refers to the temporary, two-year nature of the position.

The department also employs student athletic trainers, for whom the title “intern” more accurately applies. These trainers are undergraduates at Quinnipiac University working towards a degree in athletic training. They receive hands-on experience in the Yale training room, with five working with the football team as unpaid interns this past fall, according to Pecora.

He explained that the role of these student athletic trainers varies depending on their age; younger students may simply observe and assist senior staffers, while more experienced interns may tape ankles. The students are not allowed to work on athletes by themselves. Still, many football players expressed concern about the degree of responsibility that the student trainers hold due to the perceived understaffing in the training rooms.

“You always want to go to the full-time trainers because you feel more confident with them,” Manora said. “A lot of times the interns have to take roles that I would feel a lot more confident with a full-time trainer performing.”

“They’re real good kids,” cornerback Marquise Peggs ’19 added. “But they just don’t have the experience.”

“YOU MIGHT HAVE A DISC”

Quarterback and linebacker Spencer McManes ’17 feels that Yale’s athletic trainers are understaffed to the point where it inhibits them from following individual athlete’s injuries over the course of a season. McManes began to feel discomfort in the back of his left leg in December of his sophomore season, a pain which grew worse and spread throughout his leg in the coming months.

“When I went in to see the trainers, they consistently told me it was [tightness] and I needed to stretch  …  and roll my calf,” he said. “Then they told me it was a tight hamstring and I had to [roll it].”

Upon McManes’ insistence that the pain was not subsiding, a trainer told him that he “might have a disc” but that it was not serious; like Cannon, McManes was not contacted for follow up, he said. McManes continued to push himself in the weight room, loading up more than 400 pounds on his back for squats. By the end of the first week of spring practices, the Roswell, Georgia, native was having trouble even standing up due to the excruciating pain.

After the 2015 spring game, McManes said he pleaded with a team doctor to check on him, despite the fact that his appointment was not for another week; within minutes, the doctor had determined that the source of his pain was a herniated disc in his back. McManes would have two surgeries, a lumbar microdiscectomy in May and a spinal fusion surgery in December that removed a disc from his back and connected the vertebrae with rods, screws and cement.

“The severity could have been diminished significantly if they had just told me to stop lifting,” McManes said. “I don’t think any of the shortcomings of the trainers were from a lack of care, but from being spread so thinly throughout the team. You can only keep track of so many people.”

However, according to Pecora, the delays that McManes and Chapple faced are the exception rather than the rule. Pecora explained that between athletic trainers, team physicians and orthopedic consultants, the system has “a number of safety nets.”

“We would expect an injured student-athlete to be seen immediately,” Beckett said. “That is our goal, and we are in constant communication with our doctors.”

When asked about this communication, Cordone described weekly meetings between the athletic training staff and team physicians, which are held to “[go] over injury reports, rosters and any sorts of cases that are current.”

In a Feb. 20 interview, Pecora cited an example of an athlete who sustained an injury during an away game two days prior. The athlete was immediately treated by an athletic trainer, who scheduled an appointment for the player with the team physician on Saturday, the night of the injury. By 5 p.m. the following Monday, the athlete had already been examined by the team physician, an orthopedic surgeon and had a diagnostic test performed, Pecora said.

Even if initial treatment is timely and thorough, players expressed concerns with treatment in the long term.

Linebacker Remick Kawawaki ’17 tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus on the fourth day of preseason camp his freshman year. His initial experience with the athletic trainers was positive, he said, as the training staff knew the severity of his injury from the moment he went down. The linebacker had surgery to repair the ligaments in his knee and was impressed with the effectiveness of Cordone and then-head trainer Dave DiNapoli, who no longer works for Yale Athletics and did not respond to multiple requests for comment, in helping him regain strength in his knee.

But ultimately, the senior felt he experienced a decline in the quality and quantity of care he received as his recovery progressed.

“Initially I felt like I got the right amount of attention, and then eventually it just fell off,” Kawawaki said. “Even with the best athletic trainers, which I think [Yale’s trainers] are in terms of care and the amount of time they put in, it’s tough to keep tabs on everyone, and little things slip by that turn into big things.”

With less attention from trainers, however, Kawawaki eventually hit a wall in his rehab, and the swelling in his knee would not recede. The following fall, he eventually discovered that he had a patellofemoral defect in the operated knee that would require a second surgery.

Though he eventually recovered from the knee injury, Kawawaki would have more troubles during his senior year. In October, he approached trainers about a pain in his back and sought a doctor’s opinion when they initially told him it was just a strain, he said.

After hearing the ordeals of McManes and other teammates who suffered herniated discs, Kawawaki said he believed he should get an MRI since he felt a similar pain down his leg. However, the Yale doctor he saw told him an MRI was not worth it and unnecessary, and diagnosed him with a bulging disc. A month later, another doctor on Yale’s staff diagnosed Kawawaki with a herniated disk, which represents a more advanced degradation than bulging. The senior felt the initial dismissal of an MRI hindered and delayed his eventual rehabilitation.

YALE LOSES KAI

Kawawaki attributed much of his success in recovering from his original knee injury to physical therapist Kai Aboulian, a former member of Yale’s staff. Chapple, Cannon and others echoed Kawawaki’s comments.

“[Aboulian] was essential to all guys who were dealing with shoulder injuries,” Chapple said. “As soon as he was gone, it led to the demise of a lot of the guys’ injuries.”

Aboulian is a physical therapist and certified athletic trainer who worked for the Yale sports medicine department on a part-time basis from 2009 to 2012. He returned in a part-time capacity in 2015 and worked until May 2016 exclusively with the football and men’s lacrosse teams. He briefly helped the football team during the 2016 preseason on an even more limited basis.

Aboulian had a close, working relationship with many players on the team; according to several of those players, he had expressed interest in working for Yale full time. The players on the football team said they have noticed a steep decline in the quality of their rehabilitation and physical therapy since his departure.

While recovering from an injury this fall, wide receiver Bo Hines ’18 chose to make the hourlong round-trip drive to receive treatment from Aboulian in the physical therapist’s home on the Connecticut Shoreline. Hines transferred from North Carolina State University following a rookie season that garnered him Freshman All-American First Team honors. Yet in his two seasons at Yale, he has played in just three quarters of a single game, all in 2015, due to a gruesome shoulder separation his sophomore year and a collarbone injury his junior year.

“The [shoulder] injury was probably a cumulative thing [from my time at NC State],” Hines said. “That being said, if we had the proper resources here and the trainers [were able to] invest the proper time, they could have seen the weakness in my shoulder and given me things to do to strengthen it.”

Cornerback Marquise Peggs came into Yale with a pre-existing left shoulder injury which was diagnosed as a torn labrum by Yale staff during preseason camp. He played his freshman season with the injury by wearing a brace and underwent surgery in November, six days after the season finale.

According to Peggs, the Yale coaching staff ensured that the rising sophomore would partake in rehabilitation to strengthen his shoulder on campus over the summer. However, this did not happen: Cordone said Aboulian was not under contract with the University in June and July 2016. Peggs said that no other physical therapist coordinated with him — a fact the coaching staff was not aware of until after training camp had started.

Peggs, who missed half of the 2016 season due to injury, never got his shoulder feeling close to full strength leading up to the season, he said. While he knew this lack of strength was due to a shortage of rehabilitation, the staff kept telling him it was a confidence issue.

“[It went wrong] once the summer came along and Kai [Aboulian] wasn’t here,” Peggs said. “The coaches thought he was here. Ultimately, it was a huge miscommunication. It shouldn’t happen at the level of college football that we play.”

RAMIFICATIONS BEYOND YALE

According to Cordone, the Dwyer Sports Medicine Center — the training room at Payne Whitney that serves as the sports medicine department’s central hub — is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Either he or Snecinski has coverage of the room during these hours. The training room at the Smilow Center is typically open from 2 to 7 p.m. to care for athletes before and after practice.

Despite these wide hours of operation, former Bulldog and National Football League running back Tyler Varga ’15 had a different experience during his Yale days.

“As an athlete at Yale, I had to befriend Payne Whitney staff [members] so I could sneak into the training room when it was closed during the daytime during its regular hours so I could do rehab by myself,” Varga said. “It wasn’t open when it was supposed to be because our staff was spread too thin.”

Varga’s most important run-in with the sports medicine department proved less effective than he would have liked. During his junior year, the running back suffered multiple broken bones in his foot and ankle. He said he was disappointed to find that Yale lacked what he considered a common machine used to treat such injuries, called a bone growth stimulator.

Varga was unable to play his junior season and took up upwards of eight months to get back on the field. Yet the injury never healed properly, with the still-damaged bones in his foot continuing to hurt the professional prospect. The former Indianapolis Colt remembers waking up the week of the NFL Scouting Combine and not being able to walk.

“A year and a half down the road, I had complications from this injury and missed the NFL Combine, the biggest stage you can be invited to as an NFL prospect,” Varga said. “Then I had to get ankle surgery before the NFL Draft. It couldn’t have helped my resume, and I think it possibly could have been avoided if the training staff had the necessary tools available.”

While the burden of rehabilitation undoubtedly falls on the players in addition to the sports medicine staff, Varga said he felt that the trainers were not able to maximize the effectiveness of his rehabilitation.

“You got a couple full-time guys that really care and are doing a great job,” Varga said. “I just felt they weren’t getting the resources they needed to do their jobs to the fullest of their abilities, whether that be manpower or different modalities [of rehab equipment].”

Many players echoed Varga’s praise of the training staff members and their care but raised similar concerns about limited staff and resources.

Chapple recalled several instances in the offseason when he went to the training room after a workout, only to be told that treatment priority was reserved for in-season athletes.

And according to Cannon, the facility at Smilow contains just one column of resistance bands ,which are key for rehabbing shoulder injuries. He estimated that 15 members of the 2016 football team battled shoulder injuries, meaning “we’re just piling around [the column], and it’s not very effective.”

Though the department has no plans to expand the size of the training rooms, Beckett and Pecora speculated that the space could be used more efficiently to give players more room.

STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Yale Athletics has made improvements to the facilities and modalities in the past. According to Pecora, almost all of the equipment at the Smilow Center was replaced within the last two years, and the Dwyer Center has received some upgrades as well. However, members of the football team note that requests made to the Yale athletic department regarding improvements in resources, which in turn go to the Provost’s Office, have not seen much success.

“The most common thing I hear is that we are always on a budget,” Manora said. “Even the trainers themselves say we need more trainers and resources. This year was a step in the right direction as far as receiving more equipment.”

Manora cited an increase in the number of Game Ready machines in the training room as an example of increased protection of Yale’s student-athletes. A Game Ready is a compression wrap connected to a machine that runs cold water through the wrap, which, according to Cordone, delivers more benefits over a conventional ice pack. Yale currently has six machines.

Manora credits alumni donations for providing the machines, saying that they have been an enormous success with athletes from all sports. The former captain believes this is a positive step for Yale Athletics to build on in terms of providing student-athletes with adequate resources to keep themselves healthy.

Pecora characterized a different experience with regard to obtaining funding. While noting that every department at any institution has to be realistic about how much funding it will receive, Pecora said the sports medicine department has had largely positive experiences with the Provost’s Office.

The Provost’s Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The athletics department is currently in the process of securing funding for the addition of another two athletic trainers and a part-time physical therapist in anticipation for the 2017–18 school year, though Beckett said the process with the Provost’s Office can take months.

“It is a very fair process,” the athletics director said. “No matter where you are in an organization you need to have accountability, you need to be prudent and you need to go through all of your … needs versus wants.”

In terms of other advancements, Yale has also invested in NormaTec Recovery Systems, which are compression boots that help move fluid out of extremities. Additionally, Cordone said members of his staff have recently started dry needling, a method of muscle stimulation for the purpose of pain relief.

Cordone hopes to create an endowment in the coming years to help the department become more sustainable and also help it meet five-year goals, although he noted that the endowment is still in the “idea phase” and few support staffs have their own endowment.

“People go to Yale for one reason: because it’s one of the best institutions in the world, if not the best,” Varga said. “That should be across all the phases of the student-athlete experience. … Whatever it is, you should be empowered to do that at Yale. If you aren’t, then we are not living up to the Yale pedigree.”

Harvard-Yale 2016:
Scenes from The Game

Lead photo by Robbie Short

Published on November 22, 2016

On Saturday, Yale’s football team stunned a packed Harvard Stadium by pulling out a win over its Crimson rivals, ending a nine-year losing streak most were sure would extend to a decade. The News had photographers on the ground for all the action.

The Yale Precision Marching Band warmed up the Yale crowd with a brief performance before kickoff. (Maya Sweedler)

Yale's side of the stadium was full of thousands of Yale fans, young and old. (Robbie Short)

Heading into the game, the Bulldogs hadn't won a game against Harvard since 2006. (Robbie Short)

Return man Jason Alessi ’18, a 2016 All-Ivy Second Team selection, recorded 40 yards on two kickoff returns against the Crimson. (Maya Sweedler)

Running back Alan Lamar ’20 scored Yale’s first points of The Game on a touchdown run at the end of the first half. (Robbie Short)

Defensive back Hayden Carlson ’18 recorded seven total tackles in The Game, and finished the season ranked third in the Ivy League with 95 on the season. (Robbie Short)

Quarterback Kurt Rawlings ’20 threw 17–28 for 131 yards and two touchdowns to go along with a game-high 74 rushing yards. (Robbie Short)

(Robbie Short)

The Yale Precision Marching Band continued its tradition of honoring Yale's 12 residential colleges during its halftime show. (Robbie Short)

The teams battled before a crowd of 30,000 in a sold-out Harvard Stadium. (Robbie Short)

Linebacker and captain Darius Manora ’17 tied Harvard’s Kolbi Brown for most tackles in The Game with nine. (Robbie Short)

Linebacker Matthew Oplinger ’18 energizes the Yale crowd at Harvard Stadium. (Robbie Short)

Yale head coach Tony Reno improved to 24–26 as Yale’s head coach with his first win over Harvard. (Robbie Short)

At the end of the third quarter, some students and friends of Saybrook College participated in the annual Saybrook Strip, causing a slight delay in the game. (Robbie Short)

Quarterback Kurt Rawlings ’20 found receiver Reed Klubnik ’20 for two touchdowns on the day, including the go-ahead score with 4:14 remaining. (Robbie Short)

Wide receiver Reed Klubnik ’20 celebrates after scoring the go-ahead touchdown. (Matthew Stock)

The Yale crowd began to celebrate as the clock ticked down at the end of the fourth quarter. (Robbie Short)

Yalies rushed onto the field to celebrate once the result was official. The final score: 21-14. (Matthew Stock)

(Robbie Short)

(Robbie Short)

(Robbie Short)

2020 — Chronicling Ivy League
recruitment: The summer months

By Maya Sweedler

Published on April 24, 2015

At 6:30 a.m. on April 15, 2015, the Hartmanns’ phone rang. It was the first day of the NCAA’s spring evaluation period, and Princeton University wanted to be the first to call defensive end Carter Hartmann, a current junior at Mission Viejo High School in Southern California.

They were indeed the first.

“Harvard called me at 3 [p.m.] and they’re like, ‘Hey, we just wanted to be the first people to call you. We are the first, aren’t we?’” Hartmann said. “I had to tell them, ‘Yeah, Princeton called me at 6:30.’ It was pretty funny.”

Hartmann, however, has not yet spoken to Yale, the last of the three Ivy League schools that has expressed serious interest in him, during this spring evaluation period. He said his parents will be speaking with head coach Tony Reno sometime before the period ends on May 31.

Not every high school football player is woken up by a call from a Division I university. As football recruiting for the class of 2020 approaches its peak, high school athletes around the country are seeking the one thing that can get them that phone call: exposure.

With classes out and football season quickly approaching, the summer between a player’s junior and senior years can set the tone for his recruitment process. Data derived from summer camps, combines and preliminary academic assessments helps Ivy League coaches to whittle down the prospect pool, and although NCAA restrictions limit the contact between student-athletes and coaches, there is increased communication as the deadline for official visits approaches.

“At Yale we need to cast a wide scope because we’re looking for students that we can predict … [will] get through the application process academically, student-athletes that can play Division I football.”

—Tony Reno, Head Coach of Yale Football

THE REGULATION OF RECRUITMENT

Since its inception in 1906 as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, the National College Athletic Association has served as the ultimate authority on college athletics. As the number of student-athletes has swelled, the NCAA has grown right alongside it, as have the rules and regulations it creates.

Today, Division I football recruiting is an almost scientifically precise process. Each year, the NCAA puts out a colored calendar demarcating the four different types of recruitment periods: the quiet period, in which prospects can unofficially visit schools and communicate with coaches via written or electronic methods; the evaluation period, in which off-campus interactions between prospects and students are forbidden but coaches may visit high schools and prospects may visit colleges; the contact period, in which coaches and prospects may communicate and visit anywhere, provided a coach does not visit a high school more than once in one week; and the dead period, in which only written or electronic communication is permitted.

In addition to abiding by the NCAA standards, schools in the Ivy League adhere to further standards set forth by the Ivy Group Agreement.

The first agreement, signed in 1945 and restricted to football, affirmed the decision to uphold the same eligibility rules and academic standards and to dispense only need-based financial aid, not athletic scholarships. By extending the agreement to all sports in 1954, the Ivy League was formally created.

Since then, Ivy League football has been regulated separately from all other sports. The football programs operate under a slightly different set of rules, as the league allows 120 students over four years to matriculate with support from the football coach, according to Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, deputy executive director of the Ivy League.

“All other sports are lumped together,” Campbell-McGovern said. “Every institution makes their own decisions about how they’ll further limit, or how they’ll allocate the number of slots that they have. They’re bound more by institutional limits.”

Of course, that does not mean a perfect 30 football players matriculate — or are even admitted — to Yale in any given year, according to Undergraduate Dean of Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan. Campbell-McGovern noted that there is a much larger pool of students who are contacted by, and subsequently communicate with the football programs.

Reno explained that due to the school’s high academic standards, the football program is forced to start looking early and cast a wide net.

“We’ll start gathering information on recruits or potential prospects in February of their junior year,” Reno said. “As you can imagine, at Yale we need to cast a wide scope because we’re looking for students that we can predict … [will] get through the application process academically, student-athletes that can play Division I football.”

Sometimes it falls to the student-athlete to put him or herself on a school’s radar. Gathering information often begins with players or coaches reaching out to recruitment coordinators.

Highlight tapes, unofficial transcripts and conversations with high school coaches allow the football staff to sketch a basic profile for each player.

“What we do is we get recommendations from high school coaches and we get transcripts from the student-athletes,” Reno said. “They’ll give us unofficial transcripts and we’ll take a look at them and see where they are, how well they’re doing in class, their strength of schedule and the classes they’re taking.”

Per NCAA standards, prospects are permitted to visit a school unofficially as many times as they like and whenever they like, provided that there is no contact with a coach if the visit falls during a dead period. Official visits, which the universities pay for, do not begin until Sept. 1 of a student-athlete’s senior year. There is a limit of five for each prospect, and it is up to his or her discretion to choose which schools to visit.

In the meantime, summer camps provide another method of evaluating players.

Koby Quansah

(courtesy of Koby Quansah)

ROLE OF SUMMER CAMPS

Yale hosts eight one-day prospect camps throughout the summer to help student-athletes attract attention. According to Reno, these summer camps are valuable because they allow the staff to evaluate personal characteristics.

“I think for us, it’s a way to see how players work, how they take coaching, how they react when the chips are down and they’ve made some mistakes,” Reno said. “Are they able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and go to the next play? Those are all very important things. For me, the intangibles are very important: how they carry themselves, how they treat others. What we’re looking for are Yale football players, guys who look like they’re going to live by our core values and what we believe in.”

High school coaches, however, were more ambivalent when it comes to the importance of summer camps.

“The name of the game is exposure,” said Jason Martinez, the head coach at Kingswood-Oxford High School in West Hartford, Conn. “You got to get your name out there. You got to go out there [and] go to camps. You can’t expect, as a blue chip kid, to get recognized. Some kids choose to not go to camps and [they] don’t get recognized because they’re not putting themselves out there.”

Martinez coaches Koby Quansah, a linebacker who began receiving calls from coaches in his sophomore year of high school. Now finishing up his junior year, Quansah said he might not attend summer camps this year because he has already done so and earned scholarship offers. Instead, he will relax and give his body some rest.

According to Martinez, this strategy works for certain athletes. For players with 20-plus offers like Quansah, Martinez explained, there is not much to do with the summer.

“He’s done all the work already,” Martinez said. “A lot of these camps are money camps, and you’re fighting for exposure and twisting in line to get reps. I’m not sure that’s where Koby is right now. I think he’s above that.”

Much like Quansah, Hartmann has already turned heads. He is currently sitting on three preliminary Ivy offers of support as well as one Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offer. The defensive end is also talking to two other FBS schools, Vanderbilt and Boise State. While he is considering attending Stanford’s football camp on June 20, he will participate in Mission Viejo’s varsity football summer training regimen.

That plan was deemed acceptable by Bob Johnson, Hartmann’s head coach at Mission Viejo High School.

“His potential off the field, in the classroom, is off the charts,” Johnson said of Hartmann. “It comes easy to him. He’s the brightest football player I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been around a long time.”

Summer camps are one of several methods of attracting attention. While Hartmann went the traditional route of sending his highlight tape, other recruits succeeded in catching Reno’s eye with performances at various combines.

Jacob Morgenstern

(courtesy of Joyce Andersen)

COMBINES

A series of timed drills, tests and exercises, football combines offer an empirical standard by which to evaluate players. Their results can factor into national rankings, which in turn generate the exposure necessary to attract Division I attention.

Last Sunday, Quansah participated in the invite-only Rivals100 camp in central New Jersey, walking away with the top linebacker award. He is now considered a four-star recruit: Rivals.com ranks him as the best inside linebacker in Connecticut and the sixth-best in his class in the country.

In addition to 15 FBS offers, two preliminary Ivy offers of support and one FCS offer, Quansah has been talking to Stanford and Oregon, two perennial powerhouse Pac-12 football programs. His coach added that Stanford visited Kingswood-Oxford on April 23 to see Quansah.

During that visit, the Cardinal linebacker coach told him that Stanford wanted to make an offer, Quansah said. However, since Quansah was informed that the school recruits at a slower pace than many other schools, he will have to wait before receiving his offer.

“I don’t think this is common in the northeast,” Martinez said of west coast schools flying east, which Stanford did in both January and April. “I talked to the Stanford coaches who said I’m only here for Koby. So I don’t know how common it is that the west coast schools come over here, or the [Southeastern Conference] schools, I don’t know how common it is for them as well. But we’re fortunate for getting schools from all over the place.”

Damarea Crockett

(courtesy of Alex Hall)

Damarea Crockett, an Arkansas native and current high school junior, also benefitted immensely from his performance in a combine. At the Nike SPARQ combine on March 14, the running back earned the highest score in the country. Official combine results measured Crockett’s 40-yard dash at 4.69 seconds, his shuttle run at 4.00 seconds and his vertical jump at 38.7 inches. For reference, running back Tyler Varga ’15, the Ivy League’s leading rusher last season, ran a 4.72 40-yard dash and had a 38.5-inch vertical jump at his pro day on March 31.

“I was getting approached more [after the combine]. I was getting more calls, I was getting more mail,” Crockett said. “That’s when I began to think about everything more and more.”

His coach at Little Rock Christian Academy, Jeff Weaver, said that while Crockett was already attracting attention before the combine, his phone began ringing from all over the country afterwards.

With seven FBS offers, including ones from Arkansas State, Vanderbilt and Colorado State, Crockett is going to have a tough decision to make, Weaver said.

“Damarea can go as high as it can go, honestly,” Weaver said. “He is the strongest overall player on our team, even as a running back. He’s a guy that’s getting lots of offers and you know, he’s a smart guy. He’s going to be eligible for everybody.”

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENTS

Eligibility is a key factor in Yale’s football recruiting process. The admissions criteria for Ivy League athletes, listed on the Ivy League website, make it clear that academic standards must be met before athletic ability is taken into consideration. Student-athletes know that, to get a shot at an Ivy League school, they must have an excellent academic record.

So when two-way player Jacob Morgenstern, then a sophomore at Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York, was given the opportunity to transfer to St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Conn., he took it.

“I think it’s one of the best academic institutions in the nation,” Morgenstern said. “The academics speak for itself. It’s an incredible school with some incredible people who’ve done some crazy things.”

Morgenstern currently has offers of support from coaches at both Harvard and Yale, the latter of which he has visited twice this year. The coaches’ support can only come into play after Oct. 1, when the admissions committee is permitted to begin reviewing completed applications.

But these offers of support are more tenuous than scholarship offers extended by any other Football Bowl Subdivision or Football Championship Subdivision team. Unlike other Division I schools, Ivy League schools do not provide athletic scholarships and maintain much more rigid academic standards.

Therefore, coaches noted, many academically ineligible prospects find out that their applications will not be supported by an Ivy League school earlier than a prospect being recruited by another Division I school.

“Another school might just drag its feet and you might think you have a shot, but you really don’t,” Martinez said. “But the Ivy League [schools], I’ve noticed, are pretty much upfront with the kids. They’ll say, hey listen, your GPA is not where it should be, or your test scores won’t allow you to get in here … They’re not stringing them along, and I don’t think anybody wants to be strung along or given false hope. Sometimes it’s tough. But they’re honest.”

This honesty pervades public recruiting information.

The Ivy League explicitly states online that “a ‘verbal commitment’ by a coach is not an offer of admission, as only the admissions office has that authority. An Ivy League coach can only commit his or her support in the admissions process.”

Before committing support, a coach can ask for a preliminary assessment of a prospect. According to the Ivy League, the admissions office may review the student-athlete’s academic credentials beginning July 1, including standardized test scores and high school transcripts. It then crafts an initial assessment, which may be shared with the prospect. But even if it is positive, this preliminary assessment in no way guarantees acceptance.

Reno said he will sometimes request these early assessments from the admissions office during the summer.

“Nothing is set in stone, they just take a look at things,” Reno said. “For us, it’s much more about looking at transcripts and saying, guys, these are some things we think you need to work on, whether it be your SAT scores or your ACT scores or your classes in general, just things that can make the application stronger.”

Hartmann, for example, spoke to Harvard on April 15. The school knew from Hartmann’s unofficial transcript that the defensive end had a 5.0 GPA his first semester of junior year.

But that is only one factor. Even without the official preliminary assessment, Harvard advised him to continue retaking the SAT.

“I got an 1890 and [Harvard] said, ‘Okay yeah, you’ll get into this school.’ But they asked me to keep taking the test because if I score higher then they can recruit someone that scored lower,” Hartmann said.

Hartmann has the entire fall to improve his score, as football operates on a comparatively late recruiting schedule, according to both Reno and Quinlan.

“The Ivy League [schools], I’ve noticed, are pretty much upfront with the kids… Sometimes it’s tough. But they’re honest.”

—Jason Martinez, Head Coach of Kingswood-Oxford High School football

Reno said the recruiting process comes to a completion when student-athletes are prepared to apply and the coaching staff is ready to move forward with them to support applications. While the date varies, Yale sometimes will not complete the entering class until the February before the student-athletes matriculate.

This is mostly because the fall is a key element to a football player’s recruitment. Throughout the prospect’s senior season, the coaching staff keeps tabs on the player. His senior year performance is a helpful benchmark in determining his ability to play at the next level, Reno said.

“A lot of it depends on senior film,” Reno said. “We look deeply into their senior film. We do that with every player … What you’re looking at is how they’ve grown from their junior film to their senior film. Have they made improvements? Have the questions you had on their junior film been answered on their senior film?”

Many of these improvements come out of the work athletes put in over the summer, both on and off the field. Although many rising seniors have not yet begun the college application process, it is well underway for these four recruits.

Greg Cameron contributed reporting.

2020 — Chronicling Ivy League
recruitment: Meet the recruits

By Maya Sweedler

Published on April 23, 2015

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any college football team, and in his first three years as Yale’s head coach, Tony Reno has embraced this philosophy. He has lured high-profile transfers away from larger football programs, such as incoming wide receiver Bo Hines from North Carolina State and quarterback Morgan Roberts ’16 from Clemson. He has also drawn players from lesser-known schools, like Tyler Varga ’15 — the Ivy League’s top rusher in the 2014 season — from Western Ontario.

Equally effective is recruiting players directly from high school. Recently, Reno has succeeded in attracting highly-ranked recruits away from the Big Ten, Pac-12, Southeastern Conference and other top-tier NCAA Division I leagues. Players such as current commit Daniel James, Jon Bezney ’18, Mason Friedline ’17 and Victor Egu ’17 turned down schools ranging from Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Wisconsin to UC Berkeley, Oregon and Michigan State in favor of Yale.

But with the class of 2019 arriving for preseason camp in four months, Reno and his staff have already started looking beyond the incoming class. For months now, the team has been receiving tapes from potential members of the class of 2020. Coaches have put together a database for each incoming class, compiling tapes and statistics in an attempt to whittle down the number of prospective athletes before hitting the road in December to evaluate players in person.

Given Yale’s high academic standards, however, this process is difficult due to the uncertainty of the high schoolers’ final academic standing. Many of the athletes Yale is eyeing are rising juniors and have not yet taken standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT, just one among a portfolio of standards Yale uses in admissions decisions. 

“We have to project kids academically,” coach Steven Vashel said at the Yale Pro Day in March. “We offer guys, get to know them and try to get them here on campus. Then the campus sells itself.”

Thus far, Reno and his staff have extended preliminary offers supporting the applications of athletes from all around the country. These players — including the following four students — are current juniors in high school, and though they will not matriculate until the fall of 2016, the college process is already well underway for them.

CARTER HARTMANN

Hailing from Mission Viejo High School, a football powerhouse in Southern California, defensive end Carter Hartmann has the football skills to match his school’s pedigree.

The youngest of four boys, he began playing tackle football when he was eight years old. One of his brothers played football for Division III school Tufts, and another received offers for basketball, though he ultimately turned them down to attend Brigham Young University.

Hartmann received offers from BYU, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.

Though the cost of flying to the east coast and attending summer camps is high, Hartmann said he intends to visit the universities. Beginning Sept. 1 of his senior year, he is allowed to make official visits — trips that the schools will cover. He is currently on an unofficial trip to BYU, a school with a special connection to Hartmann. Several members of his family have attended, so Hartmann grew up watching the football team and cheering on the Cougars.

Although he does not yet know what he wants to study, Hartmann knows he wants a school that prioritizes academics. He is currently ranked in the 99th percentile of his high school class, according to his recruiting tape.

“Academics is definitely going to be the biggest [part of the] decision, so I just contacted the Ivy League [schools] on my own,” he said. “I found their email and emailed them my film.”

Deceptively quick, the 6’3”, 255-pound Hartmann has a highlight tape that features his abilities to get off the line swiftly and to plug gaps at a moment’s notice.

At Mission Viejo, which currently boasts six active NFL players among its alumni, football is “intense.” Three of the 14 coaches listed on the roster played in the NFL, including Hartmann’s defensive line coach Mike Piel, who played defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams for four seasons.

The sport is essentially a year-round commitment, as the postseason ends in December and offseason training begins in January. Even in March, Hartmann said he attends two-and-a-half hours of practice every day.

But despite the demands, Hartmann is committed to playing football in college.

“There’s really nothing like it,” Hartmann said. “It’s the ultimate test of how bad you want something and skill and hard work. You represent your city, you represent your family and it’s a way to prove yourself. And it’s a good way to spend a Friday night, with everyone watching you.”

KOBY QUANSAH

Manchester, Connecticut native Koby Quansah, a running back/linebacker at Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford, participates in an equally intense offseason training regimen.

In addition to seven-on-seven drills twice a week, his football program offers lifting and yoga classes. Football’s time commitment was so great that Quansah was unable to play basketball in the winter.

“At first, [training] was a one-dimensional thing, with just bench presses or squats or something,” Quansah said. “But the last couple years, we’ve switched it up to where we’re doing full-body workouts. Our younger coaches got their workouts from college, and they taught us.”

But thanks to such hard-core training, the 6’1”, 212-pound junior is a three-star recruit currently sitting on offers from 19 schools, including Harvard, Duke, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt and the University of Michigan.

As of right now, Quansah said, there are no frontrunners.

“I’d say I’m giving everyone the same opportunity they’re giving me,” he said. “A lot more schools should be coming up in the spring, so I haven’t set up any official visits. We only get five visits, so I’m going to have to choose.”

He will undoubtedly have many options from which to choose: According to 247sports.com, Quansah is the best outside linebacker in Connecticut and the 28th-best in the nation.

This past season, Quansah led his conference in tackles, racking up 122 in just eight games. He also ran for 1,245 yards on 120 carries, adding 18 touchdowns to his list of accomplishments. His dominance on both sides of the ball did not go unnoticed, as he was named first-team All-New England.

Coming from an athletic family, where the sport of choice was soccer, Quansah began playing football in sixth grade. It was not until four years later that he considered playing at the next level.

“I remember watching my first college football game,” Quansah said. “It was Ohio State versus Michigan, and at that point I fell in love with the game a little bit. I wasn’t even into the whole recruiting world until going into sophomore year.”

Now, Quansah has been thrown into this world. Though he has already attended several camps, he said he plans to participate in the Rivals100 football camp and might attend summer camps at Yale, Duke and Boston College.

The potential sociology or social sciences major has not yet decided if he wants to play in the NFL.

“I’m not looking to get there right away, but if the opportunity comes, I’m going to take it,” Quansah said. “But the goal isn’t just to get there. Mainly it’s using college football to go to school and get a good education.”

JACOB MORGENSTERN

On Oct. 11, 2014, Quansah and the Kingswood-Oxford Wyverns traveled to New Canaan, Connecticut to play St. Luke’s High School. Also playing in that game was fellow Yale recruit Jacob Morgenstern, a multipurpose player who had recently arrived at St. Luke’s.

The players had talked on Twitter prior to the game, and were able to meet up both before and after the game, a 48–26 Wyvern win.

Yet prior to this season, Quansah would have had no way of meeting Morgenstern. The 6’4”, 210-pound Morgenstern transferred this season from Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, New York, to St. Luke’s after his sophomore year.

Morgenstern broke his hand during his final season at Ketcham, and as a result, he only played three games healthy.

“At that time I was like, ‘I’m never going to play in college, nobody’s going to see my tape, it wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t long enough,’ I only played three games healthy and I figured that was it,” Morgenstern said.

Then a recruiting coordinator from St. Luke’s reached out. Ultimately, Morgenstern chose to leave his friends and family behind and move in with a host family so he could attend the prep school. Though it was a difficult decision, Morgenstern said his visit convinced him that the opportunities St. Luke’s would afford him were too good to pass up. Since he arrived at St. Luke’s, his recruiting has “blown up.”

St. Luke’s has benefitted immensely from Morgenstern’s contributions on the field. In nine games, Morgenstern scored 18 total touchdowns, gained 1,064 net yards, forced three fumbles, made five interceptions and returned two punts for touchdowns.

These numbers have turned heads in both the SEC and the Big Ten. Morgenstern, who also is drawing interest for baseball, has football offers from 13 schools, including Clemson, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt. Though Yale has not offered him a spot on the baseball team, Morgenstern said Reno would allow him to play both sports at Yale.

Like Hartmann, Morgenstern cited academics as a key factor in his ultimate decision.

“First and foremost, of course, is the education I can get at these programs,” he said. “That’s very important to me. What they offer in football is also an important piece. Location also comes into it … Cost can also be a factor in the end, so you know, all those things come together and drive my decision.”

He also acknowledged the important role that family will play in his choice. Morgenstern’s older brother Aaron played football at Colgate for two seasons, so his family is familiar with the ins-and-outs of the recruiting process.

Living so close to New Haven, Morgenstern has greater access to Yale than many other recruits. He was able to attend this year’s Yale-Princeton game and dropped by campus in March.

Morgenstern hopes to follow in the path of running back Tyler Varga ’15, whom Morgenstern called a “tank” after watching him play against Princeton.

“If I’m good enough, a further career in football, maybe in the NFL, would definitely be something to think about,” Morgenstern said. “I’m really trying to see where that goes. If that doesn’t work out, I was thinking about a career in sports medicine, that’s something I’ve looked into.”

DAMAREA CROCKETT

Varga’s potential professional career will also be of interest to the top running back in Arkansas, Damarea Crockett, a recruit with pro aspirations.

Crockett, listed as 6’1” and 215 pounds, is also one of the top 25 running backs in the entire country, according to Rivals.com.

Crockett’s school, Little Rock Christian Academy, is a mid-sized private parochial school technically classified as a 4A school. However, its football program is so strong that for the past three seasons, the Warriors have played up a division. Although the school fronts a small 60-player team, Little Rock Christian was able to make the 5A playoffs last season for the first time since 2005.

But despite making it over the hump, Crockett has his sights set higher.

“I’m looking forward to having a great season,” Crockett said of his upcoming senior year. “We have a lot of returning players and I feel like we can win the state championship this year.”

As a junior at Little Rock Christian, Crockett earned 1,250 rushing yards, averaging 9.4 yards per carry. In addition, he runs an eye-popping 4.42 second 40-yard dash.

His achievements on the field have not gone unnoticed. Crockett has offers from eight schools, including Vanderbilt, Boise State and Arkansas State.

“I’m not really leaning towards anybody right now,” he said. “I’ll start narrowing down and showing my favorites as we get deeper into the summer, just to see who comes along as we go through the summer.”

While he acknowledged things could change, Crockett said he intends to attend football camps at Ole Miss, the University of Missouri and the University of Memphis.

But his top priority right now is to stay above the process. Mentioning advice provided by his current football coach, Crockett said he knows he must keep his grades up, stay out of trouble and be a good sport on and off the field.

Luckily, he has a strong support system at home.

“They encourage me a lot,” Crockett said of his parents. “They don’t put too much pressure on me about going to any school. They just leave it up to me and where I want to go.”

Clarification: April 9

This article has been revised to clarify the meaning of an “offer” Yale extends to high school athletes. Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships, and any such offers from Ivy League programs are in fact offers to support a student’s application for admission should the student meet the school’s academic guidelines.