To the Editor:
The time has come for Oberlin College to eliminate its football program and to begin a thorough review of the goals and missions of the athletic department.
The college has seriously considered axing football twice in the past six years. In 1992 the viability of Oberlin football was questioned after Wittenberg injured half the team's players, forcing Oberlin to forfeit its next game and prompting ESPN to label the Yeomen as "unequivocally the worst team in football."
Debate over the Yeomen's fate flared up again in 1994 when Oberlin's coaches, along with the rest of the North Coast Athletic Conference, secretly altered NCAA rules in order to help protect the safety of Oberlin's tiny squad.
The college avoided making the hard decision to cut football in 1992 and 1994. Both times it insisted the program was on the comeback.
But with the nation's longest Division III losing streak intact, with the national media once again making fun of Oberlin's ineptness on the field and with the least difficult portion of the Yeomen's 1996 schedule over, it's crystal clear that OC football is far from recovery.
Oberlin football has enjoyed only two winning seasons since 1947 and none since the formation of the NCAC in 1984. Those who argue that OC football can succeed have had 50 years to prove their case. It's time for the rest of us to blow the whistle on this embarrassing and costly experiment.
It must be done to protect the players, to protect Oberlin's reputation for excellence and to improve the overall structure of the college's athletic programs - varsity and otherwise.
Safety is a primary concern. When losing streaks span entire seasons, when point spreads bulge invariably into the double digits and when the number of players on Oberlin's team becomes so paltry, it's clear that we are dangerously overmatched.
A positive picture of the school does not emerge from the numerous and frequent accounts in the national news media of the mammoth incompetence of our most well-funded sports team. On the contrary, they signal to all that Oberlin is willing to tolerate programs that perpetually operate well below the high standards it purports to have.
Perhaps the most compelling reason to consider cutting Oberlin football - along with other poor programs - is that it might help the rest of the athletic department succeed. The goal of the department should be to provide Oberlin students with environments where meaningful competition can take place.
The biggest benefits from competition in terms of fitness, safety and character-building occur in settings where both teams have a reasonable expectation of winning.
By devoting resources away from teams that will never be truly competitive, Oberlin creates the chance to develop strong intramural programs (which it now sorely lacks) as well as a few outstanding varsity teams.
Producing the worst football in the country takes more coaches and more resources per athlete than any other sport. Oberlin's other teams, many of which have found success despite meager budgets, would undoubtedly benefit from the availability of resources now heaved into the black hole of football.
People like Professors George Andrews and Paul Dawson and Athletic Director Don Hunsinger - the czars of Oberlin athletics - will argue that football, via the Heisman Club, brings in more resources than it costs. If that's the case, the athletic department should have no problem throwing open its books in order to make the debate over football's future that much more informed.
They most likely won't do that, though. The athletic department and athletic committee have always jealously guarded their programs and their finances, hiding them from Oberlin students and faculty so they can continue their pitiful reign over one losing team after another.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 4; September 27, 1996
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