<p>No, no, no. You’re missing it. The games are great and they are exciting and the quality is truly phenomenal, but the scene and the impact on the campus is the best and most unique part. You may have seen the Duke-U North Carolina game on TV, but what you didn’t see was the tent village outside of Cameron (called Kryschevskiville-I can’t spell it obviously) where kids have been camping out for tickets for days, maybe weeks. You didn’t feel the excitement on the campus and the anticipation that is literally everywhere. You didn’t see the months of anticipation in the local community between students (these schools are only 8 miles apart) and the locals. You probably saw a great game on TV, but the true scene is so much more than that. And I just don’t think there is anything like it on any Ivy campus.</p>
<p>“I’ve seen Duke UNC on tv before, and it didn’t seem all that special to me. A bunch of kids jumping up and down . . . how clever.”</p>
<p>“I’d much rather go to 4500 capacity crowd where the building literally shakes after every goal.”</p>
<p>Hey, did you know that Duke is the same size as most Ivies? And that Cameron’s seating capacity is probably around just that?</p>
<p>Duke has 6330 undergraduates. Cameron seats 9318. (They could probably sell tickets for 20,000 or more each game. U North Carolina’s basketball arena seats about 22,000.)</p>
<p>Cornell has 13,562 undergraduates. The hockey stadium seats just under 4500.</p>
<p>Whaaaa people are comparing Duke’s Cameron to a Cornell hockey stadium…that is hilarious. Duke’s Cameron is absolutely legendary. You get into a decent section in the student section and you pretty much are guaranteed to get on TV.</p>
<p>Though I did hear about the “throwing fish on ice” against Harvard while visiting Cornell, found that clever.</p>
<p>Lynah Rink isn’t just some random hockey stadium. I wouldn’t even call it a stadium. It’s a barn that most hardcore hockey fans will try to travel to at some point in their life. </p>
<p>Look, to each his own. Every sports fan likes what they like. I just don’t get why you have to bring down the Ivies to make your point. Its not breaking news that a Duke or Stanford etc could beat an ivy in basketball. I was perfectly happy with my athletic experience and probably would have been put off with the way major college sports programs are run with no regard for education. Not saying that my thoughts are right or wrong, they are just my thoughts. </p>
<p>And I think I’m done with this topic as I think this thread has drifted enough haha.</p>
<p>Who the hell has ever heard of Cal4? </p>
<p>I guess we are just making up groups out of thin air now. At any rate, let’s have that reality check. This isn’t the varsity jocks website is it? No, the last time I checked 99% of the discussions on this website center around academics. And out of this so-called “Cal4” there really is only one legitimate Top 10 school, so really its “Cal1” or just simply Stanford. Whereas the Ivies can legitimately claim 6 bona fide Top 10 schools (H, Y, P, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn) and all 8 are Top 20 (if not Top 15).</p>
<p>So, really, who ARE we kidding?</p>
<p>No one ever said that the Ivies were anything but premier academic institutions. However, they suck athletically, at least in the sports people watch. They are still great, get over yourself prestige, that was never in question.</p>
<p>What schools are in the Cal 4?</p>
<p>Redweather,
I completely agree with your comment “to each his own.” And I’m happy that you felt like the Ivies were able to satisfy your sporting interests. </p>
<p>I do wonder, however, if you’ve ever had the chance to spend a weekend in, say, Westwood, and gone to a USC-UCLA game or Palo Alto and gone to the “Big Game” involving Cal and Stanford. I think that you or anyone might enjoy it. My point has been that if you can get Ivy level academics AND get this incredible sports scene, then this can be a powerful and fun cocktail (pun intended) for many students. </p>
<p>the prestige,
I love the passion of your defense of the Ivy League schools and their athletic programs. In fact, I am near certain that if you had attended one of these other schools, your competitive juices would be flowing full force in THEIR defense as the differences in environment are a great differentiator of the undergraduate experience vs the Ivies. And please don’t begin to label any of these great schools (Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame) as jock schools as they are all, to varying degrees, academic peers to the Ivy schools. </p>
<p>The Great Combination colleges may not be for everyone (eg U Chicago types), but their mix of great academics and great social and athletic life makes for a very appealing and potentially better four-year undergraduate experience for many highest-quality students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What I find extremely amusing is the simple fact that when people stand up for other (read: non-Ivy) conferences, groups, schools, they are viewed or perceived as being a “loyal” alumni or a “die-hard” fan or something in a positive light.</p>
<p>BUT, then when someone has the audacity to step in to defend an Ivy, they are branded an “elitist” or a “prestige whore” or they have a “superiority complex” or they just “need to get over themselves”. Defending an Ivy is like CC’s version of defending OJ.</p>
<p>The hypocrisy is palpable.</p>
<p>the_prestige, the reality check was in response to assertions that:
and
Those statements are simply untrue with regard to the major American spectator sports of football, basketball and baseball, as I documented. As a group, California’s four premier research universities - Stanford, Cal, UCLA and USC - are a lot closer to the Ivy League schools in academics than the Ivy’s are to the California schools in major interscholastic sports. The Ivy League as a sports conference (which is, in fact, what it is) is not a first tier competitive group in major sports. I don’t know why some people feel compelled to insist that it is.</p>
<p>Current Ivy Leaguers in the Pros (202 total), for what it’s worth:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/pro-current.asp[/url]”>http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/documents/pro-current.asp</a></p>
<p>45 Percenter,
Interesting link but you might want to look at it more closely as it lists a lot of minor league teams. For the major sports of football, basketball and baseball, the total number of Ivy graduates in the NFL, the NBA and MLB is only 22 (18 in the NFL, 4 in MLB, and 0 in the NBA). If you add in hockey, that adds another 6 Ivy grads who are in the NHL. So fewer than 30 players combined for all eight schools in the four major professional sports leagues.</p>
<p>hawkette, I’m aware of that. That’s why I added, “for what it’s worth.”</p>
<p>Here’s the bottom line: Ivy League sports are NOT about big money, big media, national-spotlight, “semi-professional” (please note–I put it in quotes) teams with which most students at the particular school have little direct contact other than as spectators in a large stadium or arena. Ivy League sports DO, however, have a more DIRECT impact on the daily lives of most students than the BIG SPORTS programs at other schools. But don’t just take my word for it:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/whatisivy/index.asp[/url]”>http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/whatisivy/index.asp</a></p>
<p>So in a nutshell: Yes, for major SPECTATOR sports (i.e., football and basketball–baseball’s not much of a spectator sport on the college level), other schools with big money programs have a definite advantage over the Ivy League (although a Penn-Princeton B-Ball game at the Palestra, or the Harvard-Yale Football game, can certainly stoke a lot of enthusiasm). However, for sports PARTICIPATION, the DIRECT impact of sports on the average student, and the VARIETY of sports available, the Ivy League is unbeatable.</p>
<p>45 percenter, how is it true that sports impact an Ivy students life more? Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, for example, are all the same size as Ivies but with more prominent sports programs.</p>
<p>In a comparison involving the major professional sports leagues in America, the group of Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame compare very, very well against the Ivies and this supports the contention that the quality of athletic play at these schools far surpasses that in the Ivy League. </p>
<p>For football
The eight Ivy schools have 18 players in the NFL with Harvard having the most (4).<br>
The six non-Ivies have 104 players in the NFL. As you would expect, Notre Dame leads with 42 players, but 27 Stanford students are there and even little Rice has 7 grads in the NFL.</p>
<p>For baseball
The eight Ivy schools have 4 players in MLB.
The six non-Ivies have 56.</p>
<p>I was not able to find school-by-school data for basketball and the NBA. As the Ivy League has 0 players and four of these six schools made the NCAA tournament and are pretty consistently among the country’s most competitive basketball programs, it is pretty safe to conclude that the difference is quite large.</p>
<p>
Those individual schools are probably comparable to the Ivies in terms of the variety and depth of sports offerings that impact average students. Other than Duke’s basketball program, however, I’m not sure that those schools have “more prominent” sports programs on a national basis (meaning in the nationally prominent sports of football and basketball). If playing in a prominent sports league qualifies a school as having a prominent sports program, then you’d have to say that Rice had a prominent sports program when in played in the old Southwest Conference. I don’t think many people would say that.</p>
<p>As a CONFERENCE, however, the Ivy League can’t be beat (although it can perhaps be matched) in terms of the opportunities for sports PARTICIPATION that it offers to average students. As quoted above from the League itself:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I agree with 45 percenter - and I won’t even put it in quotes. Big time collegiate athletics in the major spectator sports is little more than an unfunded minor league for the professional leagues. I understand the competitive desire to beat the rival teams, but the consequence of providing what amounts to a sham education for sham “students” in order to field the strongest athletic team detracts from the academic ethic of college and more than counteracts the positive impact on a few scholar-athletes who might get a better educational opportunity than they otherwise would be able to enjoy. If it were feasible to enforce the Ivy League’s rules at all colleges nationwide - no athletic scholarships, limits on off-season practices, etc. - I’d be all for it. The rampant cheating that would erupt if that were attempted, however, might be worse than what we have now.</p>
<p>I admit it is embarassing to even be reading this thread. However, I can’t help tossing in my opinion, completely unsupported by statistics.</p>
<p>The Ivies seem very sports obsessed. They have to fill a lot of teams out of fairly small number of slots, and in the process are overloaded with high school jocks with high SAT scores.</p>
<p>You can safely go to a large public and <em>not</em> bother with the pleasure of the big game. You also won’t be constantly bumping into student/athletes. The same is true for Chicago, JHU and a handfull of schools that either never bit from the apple or thought better of it (Chicago).</p>
<p>The biggest problem that the ivies have is not that they aren’t really good at sports, but rather that they can’t let it go. What may be the best of both worlds to some seems like a poor compromise to me.</p>
<p>hawkette, see my post #895. Nobody’s claiming that the Ivies are major pro athlete factories. My point is this: if you measure the quality of a collegiate sports program by the number of future pro athletes the average student can watch on the football field or the basketball court, then the Ivies are well out of the running (figuratively and literally). But if you measure the quality of a collegiate sports program by the breadth, depth, and variety of the participatory opportunities it provides to the average student, the Ivy programs are unbeatable.</p>