The New England Small College Athletic Conference has won glowing appraisals in the sporting press since its founding in 1971. Established to strengthen intercollegiate sports in harmony with the high academic standards of its members–11 prestigious liberal arts colleges–the NESCAC is committed to equity and inclusion in athletic programs, and to providing only need-based financial aid. The Conference’s reputation attracts many gifted student athletes. Drawing extensively on campus archives, media reports and interviews, this book compares the NESCAC’s lofty strategy to reality, with a focus on recruiting, admissions, financial aid and diversity goals.

Dan Covell is a professor of sport management in the College of Business at Western New England University in Springfield, Massachusetts. He has worked in public and private secondary education as a coach, teacher and athletic administrator, and had a one-year administrative internship in Harvard University’s athletic department.

Dan Covell

Foreword by Stephen Hardy
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 273
Bibliographic Info: 14 photos, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8850-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-4579-7
Imprint: McFarland

Foreword by Stephen Hardy 1
Introduction: “The Sweatiest of the Liberal Arts” 5
1. An Ideal Is Born: The Future NESCACs in the Emerging Intercollegiate Athletics Landscape 23
2. Establishing the Pentagonal Agreement: The Challenges of Formalization and ­Self-Interest 35
3. Alex Schulten, the 1.6 Rule, and the Artifice of the Ideal Image Exposed 55
4. The “Potted Ivy” Conference: From the Pentagonal Agreement to NESCAC 74
5. The New Conference Faces Immediate Challenges 101
6. “When All Hell Broke Loose”: The Realities of Postseason Play 132
7. No Longer So Pure and Simple: Managing the AP-Era Ideal 159
8. Recruiting: The Realities of Athletics Resource Acquisition 186
Epilogue: The Cultivation of a New Image Era 210
Chapter Notes 231
Bibliography 247
Index 257