AD Bilsky 'appalled' by statements at Dartmouth

Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky said that Dartmouth Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg's comments about collegiate football programs "shocked" and "appalled" him.

Furstenberg has been blitzed with criticism lately for disparaging remarks he made about collegiate football programs.

"For a senior official who not only impacts policy on his own campus, but impacts it throughout the league, to have these types of feelings is concerning," Bilsky said. "You'd like to think it's not indicative or representative of Ivy thought."

Four years ago, Furstenberg sent a private letter to Swarthmore College President Alfred Bloom in support of his decision to cut his school's football program. In the letter, Furstenberg called varsity football "a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes."

The letter, which surfaced late last year, was originally published in the Valley News of White River Junction, Vt.

Furstenberg also charged that "sadly football, and the culture that surrounds it, is antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours."

He stated in the letter his belief that a "close examination" of other Ivy League athletics would find more programs that compromise academics.

Bilsky, however, stressed that the average academic index -- a number calculated during the admissions process that combines a student's GPA, SAT and SAT II scores -- for the athletic program must be within one standard deviation of the mean academic index of any entering class.

There is also a floor academic index that is established.

"Does that mean that every athlete has the average SAT of an institution?" Bilsky said."No. Some are below, some arethe same and some are higher-- just like the rest of thestudent body."

However, one male varsity athlete and College sophomore who wished to remain anonymous said that while he was being recruited to Penn he felt that he was being pursued as much for his athletic abilities as his exceptionally high SAT score, which would help raise his team's average.

He said that he had no way of knowing this for sure, but he believed his recruitment may have allowed the team to pursue other student athletes with lower academic standing.

Bilsky called this scenario "probably not likely,"saying that he does not think coaches have enough spots for recruitment available to them to be wasting any.

"Even if you did want [todo] that, you can't," he added, "The admission criteria is so regulated."

Bilsky also took umbrage to Furstenberg's statements that there is a distinct "football culture" at Ivy League institutions.

"What I would view as a football culture would be that if football players in this case were segregated from the rest of the student body -- they had their own dormitories, they had their own eating facilities, they had their own curriculums."

None of that, Bilsky said, exists at Penn.

On Dec. 20, Dartmouth President James Wright repudiated Furstenberg's statements. Furstenberg himself has expressed regret toward what he said in the letter.

This incident is just one aspect of a tumultuous year for Dartmouth Athletics.

After a 1-9 season, the Big Green fired football coach John Lyons and hired ex-Stanford coach Buddy Teevens for his second stint in Hanover.

In the basketball program, first-year coach Terry Dunn has had to deal with the unexpected departure of defending Ivy League Rookie of the Year Leon Pattman just four games into the season.

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