Athletes Protest Break In Practice

When the Ivy League presidents decided last summer to limit practice time by requiring all varsity sports to take seven weeks off during the year, they thought they were making athletes’ lives more balanced.

Requiring seven weeks of “dead time” would help curb the increasing intensity of athletics and restore focus on the Ivy League’s academic mission, the thinking went.

But most Ivy League athletes who compete at the national level say the new rule is discriminatory and seriously cripples their competitiveness against non-Ivy schools—and they are pushing for its repeal at the Dec. 10 presidents’ meeting, when the presidents are slated to review the ruling.

Under the rule, for seven weeks the hockey team can’t book ice at Bright, the basketball team can’t scrimmage at Lavietes and the soccer team can’t run drills on Ohiri, even if the coach is not present. Teams also cannot arrange sessions with conditioning coaches.

Though they have not coordinated across different sports, many Harvard athletes are protesting the rule or finding ways to circumvent it.

“We’ll do everything we possibly can to work around it,” said Kenneth J. Smith ’04, a defenseman for the varsity hockey team and a draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers. “I can’t imagine it’s helping anyone.”

Crippled Competitiveness?

The rule’s effects vary by sport—some teams are relatively unaffected while others say their competitiveness is jeopardized.

Track, for instance, will be unaffected by the ruling because indoor and outdoor track are considered separate sports. So the outdoor track season can be considered time off from the indoor season, and vice versa.

Fall sports such as field hockey and football will also not be significantly affected because their seasons end early enough to conveniently fit a seven week rest period between the fall competitive season and spring scrimmaging.

But coaches of other sports say their teams will be hurt by the ruling.

Men’s basketball coach Frank Sullivan says off-season training, which will be considerably shorter if the ruling remains in place, is crucial in developing individual skills.

“The growth curve on some of the players’ individual games will be slowed,” he writes in an e-mail.

The team’s rest period is currently slotted to take place the final seven weeks of the spring semester.

He adds that training during that time period, without the presence of graduating seniors, allows “for the initial stages of team identity to emerge before the summer, and we’ll lose that building block as well.”

For Harvard’s tennis players, who are consistently ranked among the top in the nation and rely even more on individual instruction during the off-season than other athletes, the rule could take a toll on Harvard’s national competitiveness.

“It’s unfortunate for the players who really want to get regular help during those seven weeks,” says women’s tennis coach Gordon Graham, who adds that many of his players seek out that off-season instruction.

Members of the crew team are the most vocal in their opposition, though they face only a 33-day dead-time. Hunter R. Rawlings III, Cornell president and chair of the council of Ivy presidents, shortened the rest period for crew to 33 days—the maximum the presidents could insist upon without interfering with pre-set on-water training sessions, according to Ivy League executive director Jeffrey Orleans.

Spurred by the Brown heavyweight rowing team, the Radcliffe heavyweight and lightweight crew teams will wear shirts protesting the rule as they compete in the Head of The Charles regatta this weekend.

“It’s to take a stand against a ruling that discriminates against athletes,” says Cathleen A. Greenzang ’03, a member of the Radcliffe lightweight crew team.

The shirts, which were made before the rest-period reduction, are black with a crossed-out number seven printed in white on the back.

Harvard heavyweight captain Michael J. Skey ’03 says he has no plans as of now to join in the protest, though he says he thinks even the 33-day rest period is harmful. Instead, he favors meeting with the presidents to hear “in an open forum why they did this.”

University President Lawrence H. Summers says he is aware that athletes are unhappy.

“I’ve heard concerns from people in a number of sports about the seven week rule that does raise certain questions about its wisdom,” he says.

Though he says he has not yet had a chance to “take stock” of the issue with athletic director Robert Scalise, he says he plans to do so before the December meeting.

Scalise could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Civil Disobedience

The rule—even if adopted by the presidents without revisions in the December meeting—may prove to be ineffective.

Many athletes say the rule will not stop them from training and that they are unlikely to explore other extracurricular pursuits during their time off—part of the goal behind the decision.

“A lot of athletes are training for different national teams,” Skey says. “They’re not going to stop training because a bunch of presidents got together and thought it would be a good idea for them not to train and join the cello group for seven weeks.”

Skey, who is a member of the U.S. junior national crew team, says the national team coach will post on the team’s official website recommended work-outs for Ivy League athletes who cannot take direction from their coach during the rest period.

While Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68, who sits on the Ivy League policy committee which recommended a five-week break, says he realizes athletes aren’t going to “stop dead in their tracks and going to go study for all seven weeks,” he thinks the ruling will cut back the intensity “some.”

He adds the ruling would have been more effective if it attacked the problem of in-season intensity rather than off-season intensity.

“The rest periods come out of a time of the year when the intensity is already much below what it is during the season, the period when our intercollegiate athletes need the time,” Lewis says. “It’s a bit of a blunt instrument for the league to be using to address the very real time and intensity problems the league faces.”

The Ruling Reconsidered

The ruling is part of a larger review that seeks to reconsider the role of athletics in college life.

“[It] will strengthen our commitment to the opportunity for a positive Ivy League athletic experience, within the context—and serving the goals—of a liberal undergraduate education,” said Rawlings in a press release.

A seven-week rest period is perhaps the most drastic attack on the intensity of Ivy League athletics, but it is not without some precedent.

Already, varsity athletes face restrictions on their practice time.

According to NCAA rules, an athlete can practice no more that 20 hours per week under the direction of a coach during the season. Out of season, Ivy League rules limit practice time to six hours per week.

But it seemed this wasn’t enough. After years of internal discussion, the presidents asked the athletic directors in the spring of 2001 to look into a 10- week rest period. The athletic directors recommended five weeks, and the presidents decided last July on a compromise of seven weeks.

According to Ivy Executive director Jeffrey Orleans, seven weeks seemed to the presidents a proper balance after hearing from athletic directors and other representatives from each Ivy.

The presidents will continue to listen to athletic directors and student athletes to determine whether the rule is having the intended effect, he adds.

Athletic directors are working on a review of the rule and will present their findings at the Dec. 10 presidents’ meeting.

“The presidents take seriously the idea of finding the right balance,” Orleans said.

If the preliminary observations of several Ivy athletic directors is any indication, the ruling may be in danger.

Yale athletic director Thomas Beckett says he encountered “immediate feedback that the students don’t like it.”

“I just think the students are saying they just don’t quite understand why this was done and what the purpose of it is,” Beckett said.

Brown athletic director David Roach says that, given what he has heard so far from student athletes, “a lot needs to be revisited and at the minimum some adjustments made.”

Roach adds that the rule is discriminatory.

“We aren’t telling the Brown Daily Herald or singing groups that they have to do the same thing.”

—Staff Writer William M. Rasmussen can be reached at wrasmuss@fas.harvard.edu.