Author:
An Observer
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Date Posted: 16:39:39 12/03/24 Tue
Clearly, having Dartmouth play at Yale Bowl and Palmer Stadium every single season, year in and year out, is unfair from a competitiveness standpoint.
But the athletic directors at Dartmouth, Yale and Princeton are all consenting adults. What they choose to do in the privacy of their bedrooms -- I mean, boardrooms -- is their business.
The operative word here is "business."
Dartmouth, I presume, concluded that traveling to New Haven and Central New Jersey every single season, while a negative from the standpoint of winning football games, was an attractive business proposition. Like a lanky cornerback facing Derrick Henry running at him full speed, sometimes a sound business decision can be made quickly, even if it does not appear so to the uninitiated.
I would hazard a guess that the policy was reversed not when a Dartmouth AD suddenly realized, "Hey, this is unfair!" but rather when the crowds and the gate at the Bowl and Palmer had shrunk to the point where the pie was too small to tolerate the potential negative impact on the W-L record.
Nobody changed their mind because of fairness, equity or doing the right thing.
They changed their mind when the dollars dried up.
As in so many elements of college football, the Ivies pioneered what eventually spread nationwide to the Alabama's and Texas' of the landscape. Then, having spread our seed, we withdrew to comfortable chairs in our secret societies and eating clubs to watch the mighty Crimson Tide host Mercer University.
I hope that all those pretty blonde coeds and their drunk tie-wearing dates at Bryant-Denny or Darrell K. Royal are mindful that their beloved autumn ritual was created entirely by the people they now disdain: those detested ivory tower Ivy Leaguers at Yale and Princeton.
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