Ivy rule unfair to two-sport athletes

Princeton sophomore Chris Young should be allowed to play professional baseball in the Pirates minor league system, and then help the Tigers basketball team as they try to wrest the Ivy title from the Quakers next spring.

Penn freshman Jon Searles should be allowed to play baseball in the Pirates minor league system and then push Gavin Hoffman for the starting quarterback spot on the Quakers football team next fall.

Because of a seemingly arbitrary Ivy League rule, neither of those things are going to happen.

Ancient Eight athletes are not allowed to play professionally in one sport without forgoing athletic eligibility in any other sport they might care to play. This is not the case, by the way, for any of the other 310 NCAA Division I schools.

So, had Texas running back Ricky Williams been a Quaker instead of a Longhorn, his record-breaking, Heisman Trophy winning season would not have been nullified by the fact that he got paid to play a little summer baseball for the Reading (AA) Phillies.

OK, so that was an extreme example, but the rule should be changed, if only to avoid a needless "what if" scenario for Ivy League teams and their fans.

The Penn football team has had the "what ifs" twice in recent memory.

In 1996, the Quakers two-year starting quarterback signed a contract to play shortstop for the Atlanta Braves the summer before his senior year. Having already led the Quakers to an Ivy League championship and a tie for second, what if DeRosa had been allowed to stick around for another year to play football, even after a summer in Braves 'A' ball? Would the Quakers have bettered their third-place finish?

And then there's Searles, the Quakers highly-touted football and baseball recruit, who eventually wound up going to school here but plays for neither team because he decided to take the sweet deal the Pirates offered him when they drafted him out of high school. What if he turns out to be better than the record-holding Hoffman?

"The original Ivy League rule was that Ivy League athletes should simply be amateurs," said Jeff Orleans, Executive Director at the League office. "The original concept of an 'amateur' is that one should keep athletics in an academic context. It's the idea that you should commit your life to the college."

I'm all for committing one's life to one's school, but I know lots of people that don't commit their lives to the college experience during the summer. They get jobs. So why should an athlete have to pass up the chance at what is, essentially, a well-paid summer job if he has every intention of committing himself to the college and another sport when he comes back in the fall?

And it should be noted here that minor league baseball is really the only sport in which this situation would come up, because an athlete has to be enrolled full-time, both semesters, in the school for which they intend to play. Almost any other professional sport would make it impossible for an athlete to go to school full time, so the point would be moot.

Even Penn basketball coach Fran Dunphy, whose team's chances for another title or two would be greatly enhanced by Young's departure, thinks that the rule is silly.

"I have no idea, I can't imagine why this rule would be in effect," Dunphy said. "[Young] should be able to play baseball in the summer and go back to school and play basketball.

"It's unfortunate that our league doesn't allow this to happen. It's not the right way to do this, and I don't care [what school] it is. Princeton, Cornell, I just want what's right."

Unfortunately, "what's right" doesn't sound like it's going to come around very soon.

"This issue comes up episodically," Orleans said. "Then the Presidents may have some sort of discussion on it. But I haven't seen any formal discussions being planned to systematically consider whether or not to change the rule."

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