Ivy league sports?

[tripitaka]

obviously wiki knows more than me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League , but yes, it was originally set up as a sports league, iirc.



i played basketball with a guy who played at brown, and i recall him saying something to the tune of, if someone was smart enough and good enough at whatever sport it was, then a way would be found for him to attend, regardless of how poor he was.



Also, Nonius, i think you shouldn't mention standford without mentioning volleyball, imo.

[Corey]

While the Ivy League is prohibited from handing out athletic scholarships, that doesn't prevent them from tossing a few 'academic' scholarship towards the particularly gifted athletes. Most of these scholarships have relaxed academic standards.



What is funny about this is that most athletic scholarships become void if the student quits his/her sport. This gives the school leverage to make sure the student continues playing their sport. Not so with the academic scholarships! So you will find many students who are very gifted athletes, but only so-so students, given full rides to exceptional institutions based on the students 'academic merit', only to have the student quit the sport freshman year and maintain their grades so they could collect their scholarship check every month.



I could always figure out which students these were: they were the abnormally in-shape gentlemen who were buying rounds at the beginning of every month...

[functor]

I was captain of the varsity men's squash team at an Ivy League school. I definitely think that coaches have some pull at getting students into schools although there are no sports scholarships. In fact, as far as I know the Ivy Leagues don't give out any scholarships whatsoever, it is all based on financial need.



I'm pretty sure people some people I knew at schools such as Harvard or Princeton partly got in because of their ability at squash. Squash is somewhat of an 'Ivy League' sport in the sense that nearly all of the top schools at it are the Ivies. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in other sports too -- but you have to be pretty good.