<p>After reading the article hudsonvalley cited from the Lafayette (student newspaper), I am concerned. If the league votes to go with scholarships, Lafayette will have to either go along or leave the Patriot league, because they won’t be able to remain competitive within the League, and I believe that would be a huge mistake. Like it or not, the college gets a lot of its public identity from its association with the Patriot League and from playing a large percentage of its games against the Ivies. The Patriot League has a strong association with the Ivies. Playing the Ivies in athletics puts Lafayette into people’s (read: prospective students and parents) minds as a strong academic school. I honestly feel that if Lafayette ends up leaving the Patriot league, they’ll have to drop to Division 3. As the smallest D1 school in the nation, it’s already difficult to find schools to play against competitively. If we’re not a Patriot League school, who are we? A tiny D1 school who competes with… East Stroudsburg? </p>
<p>Like it or not, much of a school’s public reputation comes from athletics. Not so much whether you win or lose, but who you play against. In the minds of much of the public, who you play sports against is your peer group. If the Patriot League votes in football scholarships, Lafayette needs to either get on board, or play against other “academic” schools our size - virtually all of whom are D3. (NESCAC, anyone? Hello Hamilton, Connecticut College, Trinity, etc).</p>
<p>edit: HV - just read your second article. It frames the issue well. If Weiss wants to vote no and the league agrees with him, then that’s fine. But if the League votes yes, or some members simply defy the vote and offer scholarships, then I think Laf will have to leave the League and in that case I think D3 is the only realistic choice. And as markham pointed out, a lot of alum donated a lot of money to renovate a very nice football stadium and build a Varsity building for the team… I don’t think they’d react well to moving to D3.</p>