<p>In my original college years, I spent 2 years at a Texas state university. There, athletics were a big deal and there was certainly an “us and them” distinction between athletes and everyone else.</p>
<p>Afterward, I went to Georgetown, and chose it partly because I wanted less of a “rah rah” sports mentality and more of a focus on intellectual pursuits. They did have the men’s basketball team with some of that “us and them” factor, but the rest of the school’s athletic teams were just part of the student body, among us having spirited debates in philosophy class, striding the boards in a theater club, or wowing the class with an elegant solution to a mathematical problem. </p>
<p>Being in that environment softened my thinking on what it meant to be at a college with a lot of sports activity. I realized that there are really two visions of how sports relates to academics out there in the collegiate landscape: A) That Division I sports-as-fundraising, athletes-as-demigods, wear-the-school-colors-or-be-marked-as-a-social-pariah vision, and B) a more balanced and integrated vision that sees athletics as simply part of a well-rounded mind-body education, athletes as integrated members of the student body, and cheering for the team not some sort of cult-like religious observance but simply a way of supporting your friends and colleagues and being social.</p>
<p>I’m not an Amherst student, but I’ve met some of their athletes in the course of my college life and beyond, and the impression I get from them is that they are solidly in column B.</p>
<p>In the years since my initial undergraduate adventure, I’ve joined a rowing team and discovered first-hand that athletics can actually quiet and focus the mind. I’m happier, smarter, and more productive when I am rowing regularly than when I am not. If you set aside the prejudice that intellectualism is the province solely of the mind, you can find that intellectual spark in every cell of your body.</p>
<p>So if you gave me the choice today between a school like Amherst just as it is, and an identical Amherst with absolutely no athletic teams, I would choose Amherst just as it is. Every time. And I would find a team to join, even if it meant being a walk-on for a sport I don’t even know how to play.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary…but I encourage you to kick the tires a bit before deciding you will never ride in that car. :)</p>