The New Athletic Director: Dartmouth Needs a Winner

By Edmund Finnerty | Monday, February 4, 2002

In successful organizations everywhere, people have the desire to win and to dominate. An organization with a winning product leads that field and is respected. In institutions like Dartmouth, students have the desire to win in both athletics and academics, but our teams' records, even within the Ivy League, have been far from good. Football carried a 1-6 record in the Ivy, Men's Soccer had a 2-4-1 record, and Women's Squash only reached a 2-12 season against other Ivy League schools. Has it occurred to anybody that we need to start winning again? As the College searches for a new Athletic Director, it is important for the future of Dartmouth that the hired person has the willingness and tenacity to regain the passion for Dartmouth to be the dominating school in the Ivy League.

The Athletic Director Search Committee held a meeting on January 28 for students to share their perspectives, opinions, and expectations that will be helpful in the search for a new athletic director. Eight students attended the meeting. Among the issues raised by students were concerns about club sports and workout spaces. Most students felt that it was necessary for the new A.D. to equally distribute his time to each individual level of sport—Varsity, club, or intramural. Students also felt that the hired A.D. should provide more facilities for the average student to use.

Strangely, no one demanded of the search committee that the new A.D. would arrive at Dartmouth with the drive to win in our competitive sports.

The search committee head, Carol Folt, posed the question to the students: do any students feel that it is necessary for the new A.D. to only focus on winning? The response felt like someone had shot me in the stomach from my own team. One Dartmouth student said that he wanted the Athletic Director to think 'about ways to get sports as a social alternative.' While it is great to see the interest in sports being a social alternative, why must the new Athletic Director be the one to create the alternative? The Athletic Director needs to enter Dartmouth with the desire to win. From there the A.D. can return Dartmouth to its previously known status as a dominating force in the Ivy League.

With only seven other schools in the Ivy League, Dartmouth must first focus its attention on defeating these opponents. There is nothing wrong in students saying that academics ought to be our paramount concern, but why can't we crush our Ivy League rivals? For any student to say that he or she is not concerned with the outcome of our competing sports is lying. Dartmouth students have the passion to be successful, and we students have a similar desire for our athletic teams to be successful.

The Athletic Director Search Committee feels that the new A.D. needs to focus his or her attention on maintaining the facilities, restructuring club teams, and creating more interest in sports from students. Why not hire an additional person to focus on the managerial needs of the college, and hire an Athletic Director consumed with the passion to win? Dartmouth needs to remember how good it feels to win. We are a school with talented students on and off the field. The new A.D. could re-focus Dartmouth athletics on winning in every major Ivy League sport. The search committee must pay more attention to the desire in students to excel.

Isn't it just sick that we can't consistently beat those pencil-necked geeks from Harvard? Come on Dartmouth, it's time to start winning.

The New Athletic Director: Dartmouth Needs a Winner

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