The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 5/23/16

05.23.16

Race in athletics, 1925 to now

THE NUMBERS GAME: VIKRAM BODAS ’18 p.6

FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR p.8

JUST A BIT OUTSIDE: SAM STOCKTON ’19 p.6 SEAMORE ZHU/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

NBA playoff teams face important summer decisions

By MAXWELL KANEFIELD The Dartmouth Staff

The four NBA powerhouses battling for the Larry O’Brien Trophy seem to have grabbed the attention of the basketball and sports world. But for the majority of basketball fans, the season has already ended. We take a look at six playoff teams facing pivotal summers that will shape the trajectory of their respective franchise.

Detroit Pistons The Pistons have a great young core with NBA rebounds leader Andre Drummond, floor general Reggie Jackson, swingman Ersan Illyasova and newly acquired small forward Tobias Harris. They are strong defensively, because they are young, hungry and athletic. On the offensive side of the floor, however, they need development from more than just one-dimensional players.

Their success next year will hinge on 2015 first round draft pick Stanley Johnson’s development. As a 6-foot 7-inch swingman already tasked with defending opponent’s top scorers, he needs to develop an offensive game.

If the Pistons want to succeed next season, their young core must develop from hungry and athletic to sharp and skilled.

Indiana Pacers The Pacers already took a massive step forward this past year through the recovery of Most Valuable Player-caliber forward Paul George from injury.

They relied on an versatile back court that featured George, George Hill and Monta Ellis, presenting challenging matchups for opponents in the back court. But when they lost David West to the San Antonio Spurs in the free agency last summer, they lost their only scoring option in the front court.

This past season, they filled that void with rookie Myles Turner and Ian Mahinmi. While both provide defense, they are extremely limited. The Pacers will look at Turner to develop an offensive game that will help them challenge teams in the postseason.

Boston Celtics The Celtics already have perhaps the most important building block for a title contender — 39-year-old head coach Brad Stevens, who previously

ONE ON ONE

WITH MATT GIEGERICH ’19

BY MATT YUEN

Matt Giegerich ’19 first picked up a squash racquet at around 8-yearsold, following in his brother Brian Giegerich ’18’s footsteps. Matt Giegerich never though he would become a college squash player, but this past year he was named Dartmouth men’s squash’s team Most Valuable Player for contributing to the squad’s historic season.

Now that you had a full year playing squash, did it live up to your expectations or surprise in any ways? Any challenges?

MG: It surprised me how close our team is. I think that was the biggest surprise. All the guys on our team

got along really well. We often get team dinners and hang outside of practice. Some of the challenges are that it’s tough to play a sport in college. The academics area is really tough. Having a few hours a day we have to go practice makes it definitely tough to keep up with academics.

But actually, I think it’s a little easier in season because you have to be conscientious of your classes and be aware of what’s going on.

MG: What’s the best part of having a college team alongside you?

Just really nice to have a group of guys you can hang out with on a regular basis. We see them during the season, we have practice 6 days

Rebecca Asoulin ’17 Editor-in-Chief

04.25.16 VOL. CLXXIII No. 87

Rachel DeChiara ’17 Publisher

Annie Ma ’17 Executive Editor

Gayne Kalustian ’17 Ray Lu ’18 Sports Editors

Annie Duncan ’17 Kate Herrington ’17 Photography Editors

led mid-major Butler University to back-to-back NCAA tournament title appearances. Stevens’ team does not have a traditional superstar. The fifth seed in the Eastern Conference in this year’s playoffs, the Celtics were one of the most inexperienced teams. Their young roster built an identity around defense, hustle and teamwork. Their skillset, however, did not translate to success from beyond the arc, where they posted a third-worst in the league 33.5 percent 3-point percentage.

The Celtics have eight picks in the 2016 NBA draft — three in the first round and five in the second, making up the biggest stockpile in the NBA. They should invest in players who can come in as rookies and knock down threes at a high rate.

Houston Rockets Dwight Howard could be on the way out, and that might not be a bad thing for the Rockets. While Celtics showed off some team-first basketball, the Rockets showed virtually none.

The Rockets rode their starting five to a playoff appearance, but their bench is simply not good or experienced enough. NBA veteran Jason Terry,

a week, we often get meals together after practice — just hanging out. A group of friends you already have built in when you come to college definitely made the transition [from high school] easier.

What are your current goals for your college athletic career?

MG: Just having fun. At the end of the day, my goal is to look back at my years here and feel that the whole experience was worthwhile.

It’s not just about finishing as best as we can, but it’s also important to make friends. I know a lot of other schools that practice more, and you have to go to practice really early in the morning and stuff like that, and maybe they get a spot or two higher in the final ranking. But is it worth it? That’s the question I ask myself.

Now that your freshman year is coming to an end, if you could redo this year would you do anything differently?

MG: I would probably say to make more of an effort at the beginning to know different people. When I first came in I was a little narrow minded.

Squash and school work are the most important things, and I kind of left out some important social aspects because I felt pretty overwhelmed coming in. Now I think I’m doing a much better job of knowing different people and setting aside time to socialize and meet new people. So looking back, I wish I spent more time meeting new people. Squashwise, maybe just being a little more accepting of different people in terms

who anchored the Houston bench this past year, has logged more seasons in the league than fellow Rockets bench players K.J. McDaniels, Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Sam Dekker, Clint Capela and Montrezl Harrell combined. This team, to put it simply, is not built for success. This offseason, they need to build a roster that better fits a slashing and isolationheavy superstar like James Harden.

be even better. While none of their role players project as superstars, they could develop into key cogs. With McCollum’s contract up after next year, they could be looking at signing him to a max deal. If they invest in a pricey free agent this summer, they could limit their flexibility in the down the road.

The future is bright in Portland, and there’s no need to mortgage it for the present.

Portland Trailblazers The Trailblazers sit in one of the best spots of any team in the NBA. Projected as a team destined for the lottery, they earned a five seed in the Western Conference behind their explosive young duo. Damian Lillard has become a star, and C.J. McCollum won this year’s Most Improved Player award. In the playoffs, they defeated the Los Angeles Clippers and hung tough against the reigning champion Golden State Warriors. They are a team with plenty of cap space to go after a big man like Joakim Noah or Al Horford and fight for home court advantage in next year’s playoffs.

But the Trailblazers, one of the youngest teams in the league, could

Dallas Mavericks The Mavericks are one of the few teams riding out the twilight of their franchise superstar’s career. They received yet another strong season from 37-year-old Dirk Nowitzki and paired an interesting mix of young energizers, including rookie Justin Anderson, with banged-up veterans, such as Deron Williams. The mixture, along with some of head coach Rick Carlisle’s magic, did just enough to earn Dallas the seventh seed in the Western Conference, where they were steamrolled by the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games. This team needs to get younger and, above all else, begin the search to find Nowitzki’s replacement as the Mavericks’ icon and leader.

of how much they wanted to play or [that] what they would want to do for practice might be different from what I wanted to do for practice.

to be a part of your life. Socially, it’s important to meet new people and develop good friendships that will hopefully last a lifetime. I think those three things are important to keep in mind, making sure you have balance in those three areas.

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to offer to an incoming athlete?

MG: I would probably say to make sure you have balance in your life.

Academically, of course we’re up here first and foremost to get a great education and to learn as much as we can and to hear other people’s opinions — learn about their backgrounds and viewpoints — and athletically if you’re coming up here to play a sport, that’s going

What are your plans for squash after college?

MG: Some players have professional aspirations — I don’t. I just hopefully will be able to play when I’m older with friends or with other people who know how to play.

This article has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

SW 3

Dartmouth’s football team looks to analytics to gain an edge

By ALEXANDER AGADJANIAN The Dartmouth Staff

It’s no question that last season was a landmark one for Dartmouth football. The Big Green reached the FCS Top 25 rankings, had nationally acclaimed offensive and defensive play, eventually had players sign with or try out for professional teams and, above all else, secured a share of the Ivy League championship for the first time in 19 years. But at a more technical and even philosophical level, the team also took an innovative step.

Starting in 2015, Dartmouth partnered with the company Championship Analytics and began to receive analytics-driven advice for help with game strategy. As football continues to play catch-up to baseball and basketball in the sports analytics arena, this integration of a statisticscentered approach marks a key point of development for the program.

Central to CAI’s philosophy is simplifying the offered statistical advice, but at the same time thoroughly preparing the team for every unique circumstance it encounters on the field.

Along with feedback on past games and observations from across college football, CAI sends Dartmouth a book of recommendations regarding fourth down decisions, two point conversions, penalty acceptance/decline decisions and other game aspects customized for each week on the schedule.

“We want to prepare our teams for any situation that comes up from the opening coin flip to the end of the game,” CAI founder and president Michael McRoberts said. “From a statistical perspective, they have the insight about the strategy that would help them win the game most often.”

McRoberts also mentioned that the firm takes into account whether the upcoming game will be high-scoring or low-scoring, who is the favorite and who is the underdog, any changes in confidence of the punter and kicker and the quality of the other team’s special teams returners.

During games, these charts — specific to down and distance, field positon, time and point differential — are handled by assistant coach Chad Nice, who relays the information to head coach Buddy Teevens ’79 and offensive coordinator Keith Clark through headsets.

“It allows us to make data-driven decisions and not [purely] emotional [ones],” Nice said. “It makes sure everyone is on the same page.”

Among the most fundamental components of its analytics-driven recommendations, CAI often pushes for teams to take more chances on fourth downs. For those familiar with football analytics, going for it more on fourth down represents a central tenet.

Examining expected point totals of punting, field goal attempts and going for it on fourth down by field position, analyses unanimously show that teams

ought to try to convert on fourth downs more often than they usually do. What CAI does differently is in advising that aggressive approach in specific situations based on opponent, score, game time, down and area of the field.

“We may reach some of the same conclusions [as the studies regarding expected points], but you still have to customize that to specific situations,” McRoberts said. “Everything we do as part of our models is associated with which [decision] leads to winning most often.”

Part of this disposition to go for it more on fourth down stems from maximizing a team’s opportunities, especially when the better team in a contest clearly exists. The favorite ought to be more aggressive and thus extend the game more by using more offensive plays, creating a larger sample for its actual ability, and the disparity of talent on the field, to manifest. This dynamic became particularly relevant for Dartmouth this past season, when the team was a favorite in every game except against Harvard University.

“If you’re the favorite, you want to play at a higher pace,” McRoberts said. “The more possession you have, the more chances you have to assert your dominance.”

The methodical preparation that CAI provides often reaps benefits at the most crucial of situations. While key moments such as fourth downs force most teams to tensely deliberate during timeouts, programs supported

by CAI — granted the foresight found in the in-game recommendations — can avoid this.

“Once you get to a [third down situation], everyone on the team knows what’s going to happen on fourth down,” McRoberts pointed out. “The outcome from that is the team will be very decisive and will make very mathematically sound choices with those critical decisions.”

CAI worked with 20 teams last year, including one NFL and eight FBS teams, and is primed to double its client list for the year ahead. CAI first got in contact with Dartmouth through then-Montana State University football head coach Rob Ash, who had worked with CAI and knew Dartmouth defensive coach Don Dobes. When CAI took a road trip up north to meet with teams, that connection then lead to a meeting with Dartmouth.

Yet within Dartmouth football, consideration for incorporating analytics had already been burgeoning beforehand according to Drew Galbraith, senior associate athletics director for Peak Performance who is involved with the team.

Though the topic had been discussed for some years, the team had not been able to break through with real information to truly adopt an analytics mindset.

“This is a conversation [about

TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Dartmouth football earned a share of the Ivy League championship this past season for the first time in 19 years.

analytics] that coach Teevens and I have been having off and on for [years] about how we can be more precise in our decision-making,” Galbraith said.

“Oftentimes we end up doing things based on gut. So we were interested in what the math really is on this. And serendipitously the guys at [CAI] had reached out.”

Moreover, Galbraith views this integration of an analytics approach as part of a broader ethos that typifies the football program.

“It was a mindset of pushing ourselves to think about the game as creatively and innovatively as possible,” he said. “Obviously, there is a very visible manifestation in what the program has done with the non-tackling protocol and the mobile tackling dummy. This is another manifestation of that. We want to think about whether we’re doing things because of rote practice, or are we doing them because they’re the best informed decisions we can make at that time.”

In 2014, the Mobile Tackling Target was introduced as an alternative to the static dummies. Dartmouth cut back on tackling in 2010, and in February, the Ivy League officially voted to eliminate all full-contact hitting from regular season practices.

Part and parcel of actually implementing these strategies is becoming convinced in the first place. For Galbraith, that took the form of reading “Scorecasting,” a popular book that evaluated common beliefs in sports with data. Galbraith also mentioned that he follows The New York Times fourth-down bot. This automated device, popular on Twitter, judges each fourth down play in the NFL based on analysis of 10 years’ worth of NFL data, usually determining that coaches are too conservative in

this aspect of the game.

Though the reaction has abated as of late, efforts to embrace a statistical focus often meets resistance in sports.

Yet by all accounts — save for the kickers and punters who have seen some of their chances displaced by fourth down attempts — the reception by Dartmouth to the CAI services has been largely positive.

“Our service is really a tool for the head coach,” McRoberts said. “These are the type of decisions that fall back on them. The head coach always has to be on board with the analytics. They don’t necessarily have to follow what we’re recommending. But certainly the [Dartmouth] staff has been great and has really got into it.”

While players don’t involve themselves too much with what CAI offers, Galbraith noted that the more aggressive offensive approach — rooted in the data — bolstered the team on both sides of the ball.

“Coaches generally really positively received it, [and] same thing with the players,” he said. “There was a strong feeling among the offense that, ‘We’re the type of the team that goes for it.’

And similarly for the defense, [they] believed [they] could stop teams. There’s a layer of confidence it provided. The vast majority of players had nothing but positive things to say about it.”

For Nice, who most directly works with the analytics recommendations, the process over the last season has proved both fascinating and advantageous.

“From the top down, [people on the team] think it’s a no-brainer,” he said. “They’re just going off stats, it’s like ‘Moneyball’ [a seminal book for sports analytics]. Not everybody agrees with it, but you have to be able to take coaching and be able to adapt

to what the data is telling you. It’s very interesting to see what conventional wisdom tells you to do sometimes aligns with the data, and sometimes it completely does not.”

The final decision on whether to integrate analytics rested on Teevens’ shoulders. In accordance with his track record of introducing innovative approaches to a game as rigidly and traditionally structured as football, Teevens thus deserves much of the credit for taking this path.

“Coach Teevens is an innovative head coach [and] pretty unique to find in [college] sports, particularly in the sport of the football where a lot of decision-making is made ‘just because,’ not necessarily based in science,” Galbraith said. “These things can’t ever be all science, but there’s a lot of times we’re doing things just because that’s the way they’ve been done, instead of thinking, when you play the [strategy] out over time, you can create advantages for yourself. If we can help our decision-making, why shouldn’t we?”

To some degree, those playing for Teevens also appreciate such a mindset in coaching football. Jack Heneghan ’18, a backup quarterback involved with signaling offensive plays, observed that the analytics recommendations influenced the team’s strategy, and noted the importance of his coach adopting them.

“He’s constantly looking for an edge for our team,” Heneghan said in reference to Teevens. “He’s a great coach in that respect that he’s willing to open up his mind and learn and improve He’s been [coaching] for so long, he was a coach here in the 80s.

Some coaches of that age are closeminded, but he’s really progressive, which is fun to play for.”

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

BY THE NUMBERS

2 Recruits of color for football in 1999

2 Number of all-white sports at Dartmouth

28.7 Percent of athletes of color today

11.7 Percentage point increase in athletes of color since 2008-2009

68 Percent of women’s rugby players of color, the most diverse varsity team at Dartmouth

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

RACE AND DAR

The Athletic Department has been increasing its efforts to diversify its student b

I

n 1925, the Dartmouth football team won its sole national title behind the strong arm of halfback Andrew “Swede” Oberlander. In a black-andwhite team photo, the Big Green squad looks just as one would expect of a team from that era: burly, serious and entirely white.

In 2007, the ski team won the College its third national crown. A photo taken at the trophy presentation shows the difference 82 years makes. The team is smiling, and half its members are women. Stoic poses of yesteryear have given way to jubilant gestures. And yet this team too appears all white.

The intervening years saw Dartmouth change dramatically. The College erected Baker Library in 1928, embraced coeducation in 1972 and swelled its endowment from millions to billions. The 2006-2007 academic year was the first in which at least 30 percent of the student body were students of color. But that best-in-the-nation ski team gave no hint of that.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Dartmouth struggled to diversify its student-athlete population. Two Athletic Department Self-Studies from 1996 and 2004 — required every 10 years by the NCAA before the process was discontinued — reveal the difficulty of attracting minority athletes to Hanover.

The 1996 Self-Study identified athletic diversity as an area of concern.

At the time, the report said students of color made up 23.1 percent of the student body but just 8.3 percent of intercollegiate athletes. The Self-Study committee submitted a “Plan for Ongoing Commitment to Minority Opportunities in Athletics” in an effort to reduce the disparity.

By the athletic department’s own account, the plan was not successful.

Eight years later, in the next self-study, diversity in the student body had risen 7 percentage points to more than 30 percent. Meanwhile, the figure for student-athletes increased only 1.5 percent.

The report, produced by a committee of students, coaches and administrators, was forthright about Dartmouth’s difficulty bringing minority athletes to Hanover. In spite of “good will” and good intentions, the report said the number of “applications from recruited student-athletes of color have been as low as 17 and never higher than 40 during the past eight-year period.” The report asked, “If minority students are attending Dartmouth predominantly as scholars is that really such a bad thing?”

A Commitment to Diversity Dartmouth administrators and coaches answered in the affirmative. In 1996, Dean of the College Lee Pelton

appointed a Committee on the Recruitment of Minority Student-Athletes to examine the issue of underrepresentation. The committee concluded that it was “less than sanguine” about the lack of diversity.

First and foremost, athletics was a missed opportunity to further the College’s goal of increasing minority representation. Intercollegiate teams are perhaps Dartmouth’s most public face, and for all of the 20th century, that face had been mostly white. Because sports are “the most consistent way” Dartmouth comes together as a community, according to the committee, the racial makeup of the College’s sports teams is “a very powerful symbol about who we are, and who we are not.”

Furthermore, the committee decided, if Dartmouth was truly committed to experiential learning, athletic diversity would be a priority. When students take ideas out of the classroom and into their lives, sports are a crucial laboratory in which “ideas about identity, community and citizenship may be tested.” The 2004 Self-Study concluded that diverse teams lead to conversation across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines — key to a multicultural education.

Classics professor Paul Christesen — author of “Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds” and a supervising professor at the International Olympic Academy in Greece — said that a lack of diversity can have insidious side effects.

“As soon as we have two groups, one of which consists of largely people of color and one of which doesn’t, one group is going to be more privileged than the other,” Christesen said. “That not only runs contrary to the ideal which we’re trying to live up to, but also perpetuates inequalities, and on a small

campus like Dartmouth, it’s certainly going to create resentments.”

When asked why athletic diversity remains important today, baseball head coach Bob Whalen was more blunt.

“Because [diversity is a part of] real life,” Whalen said.

If athletic diversity is such a virtue, what had been holding the program back?

Dartmouth’s Disadvantages Academic Index Back in the 1990s, when the committee on minority recruitment was convened, coaches reserved the most frustration for the requirements imposed by the Ivy League. Namely, they chafed at a metric known as the Academic Index.

The AI emerged in 1985, a product of balancing act between the Ivy League’s elite academic reputation and its status as a competitive Division I athletic league. It ensures a minimum standard of academic excellence across the league by assigning each recruit an index from roughly 170 to 240. That index is determined by a combination of high school GPA and standardized test scores, and the Ivy League uses it to control the student-athletes who enter the Ancient Eight. No admitted athlete should have an AI below the universal floor, which has risen from 169 in the late 1990s to 176 in 2011. In addition, the average AI of an Ivy League athletic program must fall within one standard deviation of the average AI of its student body. This ensures that the two groups can be statistically considered part of the same population. In practice at Dartmouth, the Athletic Department gives each sport a hard-and-fast AI average for each incoming class. Coaches

must select a group of players which can both play at a Division I level and help them meet or exceed their determined AI threshold.

The coaches the 1999 committee spoke with felt that disadvantages of the AI fell disproportionately on Dartmouth. “Schools with the most stringent AI requirements (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton [Universities]) traditionally had the highest yield on their athletic offers.” But as the Ivy League became more competitive, Dartmouth now had “an academic profile approaching that of the other schools without the commensurate ability to attract students.”

The committee appeared to carefully tread around an unspoken fact: minority student athletes were disadvantaged by the AI because they tended to have lower test scores. In 1998, contemporaneous with the committee, the book “The Black-White Test Score Gap” detailed the significant racial divides in standardized test scores. The authors found that the average African-American student scored below 75 percent of the white student population. The book also pointed out achievement gaps with Hispanic and Native American students.

Psychologists, the book said, agreed that so-called intelligence tests really measure developed abilities. Therefore, test results are influenced by environment and thus “constitute a racially biased estimate of innate ability.” Predictably, in the 1999 report from the Committee on Recruitment of Minority Student-Athletes, Dartmouth coaches felt that standardized tests were racially biased and that the AI was a poor predictor of college success.

Location Location, the coaches said in 1999, was a key deterrent, especially to athletes

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 5

RTMOUTH ATHLETICS

body over the years, but what kinds of barriers does it face and how big has the impact actually been?

By Evan Morgan comparison is not exact — the Common Data Set does not record data for students in the categories “Nonresident aliens” and “Race/ethnicity unknown,” while the Athletic Department data has an ambiguous “Other” category. But it is a reasonable approximation.

Between the 2003-2004 and 20082009 school year, when student-athletes of color increased by 7.2 percentage points, diversity in the student body ticked up by 4.3 percentage points. And from that year to the present, the share of students of color increased 5.5 percentage points, while the student-athlete subset made progress at nearly double that clip.

Neither the admissions office nor the athletic department associated any active policy changes with the rise in student-athletes of color. Director of Admissions Paul Sunde said, “We have raised the profile of Dartmouth athletics and athletes, including students of color, in our general recruitment materials, and we play a supportive role in the recruitment of promising potential student-athletes of color.”

Coaches said that diversity is important in the athletic department, but they stressed that their primary commitment is finding success on the playing field. Winning is the basis for longevity, promotion and future job prospects.

Diversity may be an institutional goal, Critical Mass but ultimately, “What they’re asking us At some point in the early 2000s, to do is put winning teams on the field Dartmouth turned a corner. Accord- and graduate players,” Whalen said. ing to athletic department records, the Therefore, in the recruiting process, a fraction of athletes of color climbed coach finds the best players possible and “plugs in guys that fit from 9.8 perthe need,” according cent in 2004 to “An 18-year-old may head football coach 17.0 percent in all of a sudden have to to Buddy Teevens ’79. the 2008-2009 Jim Lyons, Teevens’s school year. And handle, ‘Well, I don’t predecessor, put it today, that figure even know whether more colorfully: “I stands at 28.7 don’t care if they’re percent. After there’s a barber who white or black or the large major- can cut my hair,’ or, ‘If I mean, I’ve ity of white aththere a Baptist church purple. got to find some guys letes, at 71.3 perwho can play and I cent, 8.0 percent like that church that can get to come here.” of athletes are I’m used to.’ ” Deputy athletic diblack or Africanrector Bob Ceplikas American, while 7.9 percent are - SANDY FORD-CENTONZE, ’78 said the incremental gains in diversity Asian or AsianHEAD WOMEN’S TRACK in the late 1990s and American. Hisearly 2000s laid the panic athletes AND FIELD COACH foundation for the make up 5.1 perlarge jump the procent of the total, gram has experienced Native Amerisince. cans account for 1.7 percent, and 5.0 percent of athletes “One of the things we’ve certainly learned is if you don’t already have a identified with the category “Other.”

Diversity in athletics has even out- critical mass of minority students on paced diversity in the student body at a given team, it’s more challenging to large. The Common Data Set, published recruit additional minority students to annually since 2003, allows a compari- that team,” Ceplikas said. “So in some son between diversity in the student body ways, you have to crawl before you can and diversity in athletics. Discrepan- walk and then walk before you can run cies in survey methods mean that the in terms of making a significant impact of color. “All things considered, most minority students would prefer to be in Philadelphia or some other urban area,” the report stated. Dartmouth at the time harbored a reputation that could be exploited by other coaches.

Potential recruits of color were often told by competing coaches that Dartmouth was “a white school located in the predominantly white portion of the country… repeated phone calls of this kind inevitably have their effect.”

Women’s track and field coach Sandy Ford-Centonze has been with Dartmouth since the early 1990s and was involved in writing the 1999 report on minority athlete recruitment. She described the decision process of a potential recruit coming to Dartmouth: “An 18-year-old may all of a sudden have to handle ‘Well, I don’t even know whether there’s a barber who can cut my hair,’ or ‘Is there a Baptist church like the church that I’m used to.’”

The lack of a visible presence of student-athletes of color on campus exacerbated stereotypes about Dartmouth, even as diversity in the student body was on the rise. The problem perpetuated itself, making it even more difficult to convince talented minority athletes to choose Dartmouth over programs like Harvard or Yale.

TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The women’s lacrosse team is currently one of Dartmouth’s only completely white teams.

on the percentages of students of color.”

The increased presence of studentathletes of color has allowed the College to attract talented athletes that might otherwise have looked elsewhere.

“Students of course will go on our website, they’ll look at photos of the current team, they’ll come here on a visit, they’ll meet student-athletes on the current team… it’s much more effective if what they’re seeing is a more diverse environment,” Ceplikas said.

He cited the football team as a product of that win-win situation which has resulted. Between 1996 and 2004, football matriculated a high of five athletes of color in 2002 and a low of just two in 1999. Today, Teevens leads a program of 129 athletes, 43 percent of whom are students of color.

“I think one of the reasons we’re Ivy League champions right now is because Dartmouth football raised its profile, not only in terms of being a more competitive team that prospects want to be a part of, but a more diverse team that a wider range of students felt comfortable joining,” Ceplikas said.

Identity and Class But the increase in diversity has not affected all sports equally. Skiing, for example — winners of that 2007 national championship — remains heavily white.

On the men’s side, 29 skiers identified as white, three as Hispanic, one as Asian and one as “Other.” The women’s team has 28 white skiers and one who identified as Native American.

Other sports in which whites were overrepresented relative to all Dartmouth athletes included equestrian, sailing, squash and lacrosse, among

several others.

Why this particular mix of sports?

The answer to this sociological question has two parts.

The first lies in a concept called social identity theory. This is the generalized notion that once you join a group, you develop a sense of who you are based on that group membership.

“There are certainly behavioral patterns associated with the group, and you are much more likely to manifest those behavioral patterns because you’re a member of the group, and membership in that group becomes a key part of your identity,” Christesen explained.

By birth, we take on membership in racial groups which have distinct identities predefined for us. Racial socialization is a process related to social identity theory which comprises all the various ways in which our culture communicates what race is and ought to be. Through family, media and a myriad of other sources, members of each racial group learn what sports they are expected to play and which sports are effectively off-limits.

This leads to continued participation in those expected sports. “When people are given the choice to select into things, they tend to select into things they feel comfortable and accepted in,” Christesen said. “[Once you join a sport,] the identity that comes with the sport is more likely to align with your own,” Christesen continued. “Once you’re a member of the team, you start to think that way. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and once you start playing a particular sport, that identity gets reinforced more.”

In this way, the sports which we consider as “white sports” or “black

sports” remain that way because of their attached meaning.

The late philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu had a second related answer in a 1978 essay titled “Sport and social class,” dividing sports into two broadly construed groups: “bourgeois” sports and the “common” sports. According to Bourdieu, athletes are distributed among the particular sports based on these roles and preferences dictated by social class. But in order to participate in sports, Bourdieu theorized, people must also have the necessary “spare time, economic capital, and cultural capital.”

In order to play golf, for example, an individual must not only have access to clubs and a golf course, but also must dress appropriately and know how to behave on a country club fairway.

Tennis, contended Bourdieu, is an excellent example of a “bourgeois” sport. It requires spare time and economic capital to pay for racquets and course privileges.

It molds the healthy (but not overly muscled) body sought by the bourgeois.

Most importantly, playing tennis is a way to increase social distinction according to the “aristocratic ideology of sport as disinterested, gratuitous activity.”

Basketball, in contrast, is one of Bourdieu’s “common” working-class sports. Like the other “common” sports, basketball is characterized by popularization, physicality, endurance and the exaltation of competition. Basketball produces outward signs of strength, requires considerable effort, and can be violent, entailing what Bourdieu calls “gambling with the body.” In addition, basketball is largely free, as long as you have two hoops and a ball.

SEE RACE PAGE 7

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

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Why the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Should Trade the Best Player in the Major Leagues The Angels aren’t terrible. No one is going to mistake them for the streaking Chicago Cubs, but they aren’t the woefully bad Atlanta Braves either. To put things into perspective, going into May 16, the Cubs run differential was +109, and the Braves had scored 109 runs. To be sure, the season was still young, and both teams’ fortunes could easily change. But at this point, those two franchises represent the poles of the MLB. The Angels are somewhere in between. For the Braves, who as of May 16 had yet to win 10 games (the last team in the League that still hadn’t done so), there is reason for optimism. Atlanta boasts a farm system that ESPN’s Keith Law recently rated baseball’s best. They may be laughable now, but Atlanta has studs like shortstop Dansby Swanson or pitcher Sean Newcomb waiting in the wings. Compare that to the Angels. On Law’s list, the Angels were proclaimed to have the dead worst farm system in baseball, going as far as saying that it was the worst he’d ever seen since he began evaluating farm systems.

At the big league level, things aren’t much better. In 2012, the Angels made a splash by signing Albert Pujols to a 10year $240 million contract. As it stands now, he is guaranteed the remaining $165 million through 2021. Pujols is coming off a season in which he hit just .244, the worst average of his career.

This season, Pujols has been flirting with the Mendoza.

To say that Pujols’ contract is bad is an understatement of epic proportions. The Angels’ best pitcher, Garrett Richards, has been lost for the season to a probable Tommy John surgery.

Andrew Heaney, who was in the process of developing into a solid starter for the Halos, may need the same operation.

Shortstop Andrelton Simmons, whom the Braves acquired this offseason, is expected to be out until at least July. Put simply, the future is not exactly bright in Anaheim.

What the Angels do have is the best player in baseball in Mike Trout.

Sure, the Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper had an unbelievable 2015 season and is as talented as anyone in the League. Sure, the Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado deserves to be placed in this conversation far more prominently than most analysts tend to do. Sure, the Cubs’ Kris Bryant may be a year or two away from a Harper-esque

emergence onto baseball’s center stage.

Despite all this, the fact remains that Trout is not only the best player today but is on track to be considered one of the best players ever. Trout is 24 and despite the Angels’ collective mediocrity is on track for another banner season.

He’s moved from hitting lead-off to batting third and has continued to produce the same kind of numbers that earned him the 2014 American League MVP. Since coming to the big leagues full time in 2012, he has never had a Wins Above Replacement outside the top two among position players, including finishing first in the league in 2012 and 2013 (although he currently sits at number six in 2016, behind two position players).

As good as Trout is (and he is really good), the Angels’ best option for their future is to trade him. To be clear, I am not saying that I anticipate that the Angels will trade him. They would never move on from Trout, who is signed through 2020, without serious consideration, and I doubt that consideration will come any time before the coming offseason, if it ever does.

What I am saying is that the best move for the Angels right now is to unload their best player and re-tool their entire organization.

Before dismissing this plan as insane, consider an example from the NFL. In 1989, Jimmy Johnson, head coach of the then-lowly Dallas Cowboys, decided to trade Herschel Walker, the man many considered to be the Cowboys’ only good player, to Minnesota.

In return, Johnson and the Cowboys received four players and eight draft picks that ultimately included backbones of their team like Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson. Three Vince Lombardi Trophies (from 1992, 1993 and 1995) stand in mute witness at the Cowboys’ headquarters to the ultimate success of that trade. The point is that trading your best player can bring in the kind of assets that can become the cornerstones of a dynasty.

If Trout were to become available, you can be sure that all 29 other teams would at least consider trying to acquire him. No matter who ended up with Trout, it would take a huge offer to acquire his services with a combination of top-tier prospects and established big league starters. Maybe trading Trout could be a tool to unload Pujols’s albatross of a contract.

Any legitimate offer for Trout would put the Angels on the Cowboys’ path to success. It may not end in a dynasty, but the Angels have the unique opportunity to turn their ghastly farm system into an elite one in a way the draft never could and acquire multiple above average starters. Trout on his own, despite being a generational talent, will never be able to win a championship. Several serviceable starters, along with several top-level prospects, would turn the Angels into a legitimate contender for a long time.

It wouldn’t be crazy for the Angels to trade the best player in baseball. It would set them up for a future that the best player in baseball could never realize for them alone.

Each week The Numbers Game will break down one Dartmouth sport’s statistic.

This week’s number: 128 — K atie McEachern’s career runs scored Last week, this column chronicled the career of one of Dartmouth’s preeminent female student athletes — basketball player Lakin Roland ’16. Continuing with this trend, this week we will delve into the storied career of Katie McEachern ’16. The sure-handed shortstop hit .442 on the season and collected a team-high 53 base hits. She finished the season tied for 20th in the nation in overall batting average, joined in this category by only one other Ivy League standout in the top 50. The San Diego, California native was also a threat

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

with the long ball, tallying 12 home runs in her final campaign in Hanover. For the second straight year McEachern was named Ivy League Player of the Year and earned a spot on National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s Division I Northeast All-Region First Team.

In her four-year career for the Big Green McEachern finished at the top of several of the College’s all-time lists including: home runs (40), hits (203), RBIs (129) and runs (128). While all of these are unbelievable totals, the 128 runs scored total stands out. McEachern played in 166 total games in a Dartmouth uniform meaning she averaged one run in an astonishing 77 percent of her games played. To put this in perspective, the number two person on the all time runs scored list is Sarah Damon ’02, who tallied 106 runs scored in her storied career.

Runs scored has always been one of the best indicators of evaluating talent in softball because it usually directly correlates with the overall impact a player is having on the game. Although it is a team dependent statistic, almost every individual player evaluator metric in softball is to some extent reliant on team factors. That being said, great players always do the little things to increase the odds of scoring once they reach base. This could be taking the extra base, stealing a base or being patient enough to take a base on balls when the

pitcher is nibbling at the corners of the plate. The is exactly the type of play that McEachern was known for throughout her career: doing whatever it takes, including the little things, to give her team the best chance to win.

Let’s now compare McEachern’s runs scored figures to one of the best players around the country. Georgia University’s Sydni Emanuel, who is considered by many the best hitter in the college game, scored 44 runs in 46 total games this year.

Although she scored at a slightly higher rate than McEachern, some of this differential can be chalked up to Emanuel having a stronger supporting cast. Even so, McEachern’s impact on the Dartmouth softball team still stacks up well against her counterparts around the country.

Although McEacher n has already collected a plethora of postseason accolades throughout her career, she may not be done as she has a strong chance of being named to the 2016 NFCA Division I All-American team, which will be announced on June 1. As far as the softball team as a whole is concerned, the team finished the season with a 27-15 record and a 15-5 mark in the Ivy League. The team is on the brink of capturing another Ivy title, but replacing the production of the soon-to-graduate McEachern will be extremely difficult going forward.

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016 FROM RACE PAGE 5

America and Dartmouth Here is where race reenters the picture. The uncomfortable truth is that in America, the Venn diagrams of race and social class align closely.

“In the United States, historically, social class has been tied to skin color,” Christesen said. “It’s not uniformly true in every case, but broadly construed, people of color tend to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In some societies, socioeconomic status and skin color have nothing to do with each other, but since that’s the way it works in the United States, the issue then becomes that when we’re talking about race in sports, inevitably the issues of socioeconomic status get pulled in.”

Thus, people of color in the United States tend to play sports along racial lines which are reinforced by racial socialization and descend from social class.

Jeff Orleans, the former executive director of the Ivy League, laid this bare in a 2007 interview with The Harvard Crimson. There are “two kinds of sports,” he said. Some sports have significant numbers of minority athletes; others do not.

When asked about the perceived divide, Ceplikas said he would model sports as a spectrum.

“There are obviously some sports that have a lot higher percentage of minority participation, both nationally and here, but then it kind of moves down gradually,” Ceplikas said.

Ford-Centonze echoed Orleans’ statement, noting that many of the sports which are tied to social class are less common in public schools — if they exist at all.

“It’s what is available and some of the sports that maybe some people would call the ‘white’ sports aren’t sports that are available to a lot of people, minority or non-minority,” she said.

The Committee on Minority Recruitment recognized this reality

in 1999.

“Some sports are so thoroughly inflected by a class component,” the committee wrote, “that there cannot be any reasonable expectation of regularly attracting minority athletes.”

The committee singled out a few sports as heavily class-based: tennis, rowing, squash, lacrosse, golf and skiing. Bourdieu’s “Sport and social class” contended that sailing and equestrian are similarly affected. This means that across men’s, women’s and coed sports, participation in least 17 of Dartmouth’s 35 varsity sports is significantly affected by class.

Because teams are made up of just four years of recruits whose composition can vary from year to year, Ceplikas cautioned against drawing overly specific conclusions about any particular sports. However, general trends can be discerned from statistics released to The Dartmouth by the Athletic Department which detail the racial composition of every intercollegiate sport.

Unsurprisingly, many of teams expected to be heavily class-based are the same ones which are disproportionately white. Two Dartmouth teams are entirely white: men’s squash and women’s lacrosse. The coed sailing team has 24 white athletes and four athletes of color. Men’s lacrosse is made up of 39 white men and seven men of color.

Taken generally, the statistics show a clear story: athletes of color are gaining greater purchase in Dartmouth sports, even as racial divides between sports persist. In 2008-2009, 17 percent of Dartmouth varsity student-athletes were non-white. In 2015-2016, the number is 28.7 percent.

Ongoing Commitment Ford-Centonze has relished the changes in recent years.

“I definitely see a difference. I see that the landscape has changed. But I think we all want it to change a little

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ARCHIVES OF THE DARTMOUTH, 1925

The football team, in 1925, was completely white.

bit more, to be a little bit of a greater presence, and I think it will get there,” she said.

As for how the department will get there, different voices offered different perspectives. Ceplikas highlighted the need to temper optimism with realism.

“We’re obviously committed to strive to increase diversity, but we’re conscious that each sport has its own unique prospect pool,” he said. “We’re trying hard to be still making strides in this area, but using a realistic measuring stick in each sport.”

This was a theme when talking to coaches: each sport is limited by its pool of qualified student-athletes.

“I can’t create the [player] pool for myself,” Whalen said.

This comes as the percentage of black players in Major League Baseball remained static at 8 percent, according to a USA Today analysis, down from 18.7 percent in 1981. Coaches feel a lack of control over these sociological factors that influence particular athletes to play particular sports.

Coaches and administrators were generally confident that the barriers identified by the 1999 Committee on the Recruitment of Minority Student-

Athletes — economic hurdles, the AI, Dartmouth’s location and reputation — have decreased since the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In many sports, being a high-profile athlete carries a hefty price tag from expenses like equipment, camps, travel teams and training, meaning that the high schools most likely to stand out have wealthier backgrounds.

Need-blind aid and the College’s increased financial aid capacity have helped to alleviate some of the competition for recruits from scholarship schools.

Ford-Centonze has her own reservations about the accuracy of the AI, but the metric is now generally acknowledged to be a necessary regulation. In the early years of the AI, Ceplikas said, when Dartmouth had a much smaller portion of minority athletes on its teams, coaches wished for more latitude with the AI simply because it was more difficult to convince those talented minority prospects to make visits.

“Now that we have a much larger cohort of minority athletes on our teams, the AI is much less of an issue,” Ceplikas continued.

As for Dartmouth’s reputation,

there were mixed thoughts. Whalen said that recent incidents, such as the controversy over Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority’s Derby party which changed its name to Woodstock this term, can turn away potential recruits of color, citing two examples of students in recent years who have looked elsewhere because of negative headlines about Dartmouth’s campus climate.

Ford-Centonze, meanwhile, believes Dartmouth’s “white” reputation has diminished over the years.

She has found the College’s rural location to be the biggest sticking point with recruits of color. To assist with further efforts to attract studentathletes of color, Ford-Centonze stressed the need for open dialogue, saying that Dartmouth needs to address “even the little things, not just the major things, because the little things” — like barbers and churches — “matter too.”

But as more and more students and student-athletes of color come to Hanover, Dartmouth should find it easier to attract more diverse recruits.

“When you see somebody who’s like you, all of a sudden things look pretty good, and it’s not so tough,” Ford-Centonze said.

ANNIE DUNCAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Men’s squash is the only team at Dartmouth, besides women’s lacrosse, that has no players of color.

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

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TUESDAY LINEUP

SPORTS : E AT VOT /22lbixL y /bit.l http:/

WOMEN’S SAILING CHAMPIONSHIPS AT SAN DIEGO

The D Sports Awards Female Athlete of the Year

Softball

Jaclyn Leto ’16 Lacrosse

After becoming the second Dartmouth softball player to ever win the Ivy League Player of the Year award last year, Katie McEachern ’16 picked up right where she left off, becoming just the first Dartmouth and third Ivy League player to win the award back-to-back. This season, McEachern blasted 12 home runs and collected 53 hits, building a .442 batting average in addition to drawing 25 walks.

After wrapping up her senior season, McEachern now holds Dartmouth career records in batting average, run, hits, RBIs and homes runs. She was recently named to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association’s Division I Northeast All-Region First Team after making the second team last season.

McEachern will be in contention for the NFCA Division I All-American team honors, to be announced June 1. Although Dartmouth did not reach the Ivy League Championship this season, McEachern’s prolific offense helped the team start the season with a 13-0 record against Ivy League opponents.

Jaclyn Leto ’16 will be known as one of the greatest Dartmouth lacrosse midfielders to ever play for the Big Green. The Ivy League unanimously recognized her as the Ivy League Midfielder of the Year after her stellar senior season.

She was also tabbed to the AllNortheast Region First Team and All-American Third Team by the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association.

Leto is deep in the records books at Dartmouth, scoring 175 points for fifth all time, netting 151 goals for third in program history and recording 131 draw controls for third all time. Her 53 goals this season was the sixth most by a Big Green player in a single season. She is one of four players to have scored 150 goals in her career. The Chatam, New Jersey native played in 47 games in her four years, starting 44 of them.

She ranked third nationwide in goals scored per game.

Leto led the lacrosse team in goals her sophomore, junior and senior seasons. She was named to the First Team All-Ivy team three times during her career.

Katie McEachern ’16

MONDAY, MAY 23, 2016

Yejadai Dunn ’16 Kaitlin Whitehorn ’16 Rugby Track and Field Yejadai Dunn ’16, co-captain of the women’s rugby team, had one of the most prolific years in women’s rugby history. Dunn played number eight for the Big Green in the fall and filled in all across the field for spring sevens.

In the winter, Dunn was tapped to compete at the National AllStar Competition where she was evaluated for her potential at the international level. Last February, Dunn was named to the player pool for the USA Eagles along with 48 other female athletes from across the country. This spring, despite being a player primarily focused on 15s, Dunn was named alongside with a graduating senior at Brown University as the Ivy League MVP in sevens.

Dunn, though a strong player her entire tenure at Dartmouth, truly began to gain national notice during the past two seasons.

She will continue to compete this summer for a chance to wear the stars and stripes.

In the coming weeks, Dunn will head to Colorado to play in the Senior NASC.

Since arriving at Dartmouth, Kaitlin Whitehorn ’16 has been a force for the women’s track and field team, starring in both the high jump and short-distance sprints. Her senior year campaign has been no different.

During the indoor track season in the winter, Whitehorn had a stellar showing at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, winning her third career high jump title at 1.84-meters.

She also placed sixth in the 60-meter dash. She capped off her season by qualifying for the NCAA National Championships, where she placed seventh and earned All-American accolades.

Whitehorn has continued her success in the outdoor season. She won her third consecutive Ivy League title in the high jump, making her the only woman in Dartmouth history to win not only three high jump crowns but also win them consecutively.

Whitehorn will compete at the 2016 NCAA Track & Field East Regional this weekend with a mark of 1.78 meters and seeded 24th. Look for her to continue her stellar senior year and contend for the national title this June 8 to June 11.

Laura Stacey ’16

Ice Hockey While the 2015-2016 season saw the women’s hockey team finish with a disappointing 6-19-3 record, Laura Stacey ’16, one of the team’s co-captains, consistently asserted herself as an offensive force throughout the season. Stacey earned her first point of the season on an assist on the game-tying goal in a seasonopening 2-1 upset over then-No. 5 Harvard University.

By season’s end, she tallied 10 goals and 13 assists for a teamleading 23 points and was named First Team All-Ivy and Third Team All-ECAC. On top of her contributions to the Big Green, Stacey joined the Canadian National Women’s Development Team for the 2016 Nations Cup, where she recorded a goal and an assist en route to winning the tournament title. In a moment that encapsulates her dedication to Dartmouth hockey, she flew home from the tournament in Germany on a Thursday night, arriving on campus Friday afternoon, and played in that Friday’s game. Her talent and hard work put her in contention to represent Canada in a future Olympics.

COURTESY OF KATIE MCEACHERN (MCEACHERN PHOTO), ANNIE DUNCAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The D Sports Awards Rookie of the Year:

Kat Ramage

Kat Ramage ’19 of the women’s rugby team was voted Rookie of the Year by the readers of The Dartmouth, garnering 60 percent of the total votes. Alexa Dlouhy ’19, an Alpine skier, took home 26.7 percent of the votes while Evan Boudreaux ’19 of the men’s basketball team received

11.7 percent of the votes. Amadu Kunateh ’19 received 1.7 percent of the votes. Kat Ramage came to the Big Green after representing the United States at the Youth Olympic Games in 2014. Ramage was tabbed for the age-grade player pool for the USA Eagles in February of this year.