Sports cliques: natural fact or frat-like pact?

Sarah Palermo Guest Writer

You’ve seen that group of kids over there in ACDC, all sweaty and dirty and wearing the same thing. Another “team dinner.” Boy, those athletes are cliquey, aren’t they?

“People never automatically make positive assumptions about athletes when they’re together”, said Matt Parker ’05, current men’s soccer player and former member of the men’s basketball team.

A lot of athletes report feeling very negatively stereotyped by the majority of the College community. Erin Harper ’06 of the women’s basketball team feels that athletes are often “mislabeled as less intelligent than other students.”

This may be a mentality that students have harbored since high school, where in many cases athletes were a select group, segregated from the rest of the community, and revered for reasons alien to the typical Vassar student’s values.

Tom Weishaupt ’07 of the men’s rugby team blames the negativity on a misconception many students carry from their high school atmosphere: that “jocks aren’t smart, understanding, or socially conscious.”

Parker refers to the situation as a “catch-22,” where athletes who are labeled cliquey by the mainstream culture of the College end up spending more time with their teammates, people who understand the effects of the stereotype.

“Playing two sports really became my identity my first two years on campus,” said Sarah Porter ’06, current member of the women’s basketball team and former member of the women’s volleyball team. Harper and Weishaupt also indicated that the College community may have a limited view of athletes. “Playing a sport is often how people identify you” said Harper, but Weishaupt said “it’s what we do, not who we are.”

However many athletes don’t feel that the community pigeon-holes them at all. Allison Leahy ’07 of the women’s rugby team said that she has “many other outside interests, including a radio show,” so she hopes that rugby isn’t her only campus identity. Dave McCarthy ’05, men’s rugby co-captain, echoed that sentiment. “I consider myself a student first and an athlete second. Playing rugby is a way to identify me, but not the only way.” The nature of rugby at the College and its standing at the “club” level makes it easier for the players to participate in other activities. Although her time commitments to rugby do limit her availability to other clubs, women’s rugby co-captain Emily Dorman ’05 is involved in both Democracy Matters and the College Democrats.

Time commitment is a big part of why the athletes believe teams are close-knit. Practices vary, but include two to three hour sessions, two to four times a week, depending on the sport. Harper explicitly cited “spending so much damn time together” as a reason the women’s basketball team is close. They, along with most winter sports teams, return to campus early from winter break to practice and play games. Living together in Noyes during that week was an experience Parker said helped the men’s team bond.

Porter says that the team spends so much time together during practice and games that it becomes natural for them to seek each other off the court or field. She draws on something she learned in social psychology that says “people are attracted to things to which they are exposed most often,” explaining her point that “the more time you spend with a group of people, the more you are going to like them and want to be with them.”

The grueling physical nature of many of the sports is also a source of bonding for many athletes. Adam Gallari ’07 of the baseball team points to the experience of “running sprints together at six in the morning” as a bonding moment for the baseball team. Dorman and John Wang ’05, of the men’s rugby team, both highlight the dangerous nature of rugby as a reason the teams are, and need to be, so close.

“When a soccer player calls for the ball and scores, he helps out the team. When a rugby player takes the ball from her teammate,” Dorman said, “they’re probably saving you from getting tackled. We physically protect each other out there, and that breeds respect.” Wang said that he depends on his teammates “for my health and safety.” There’s no denying that that can make you fast friends.

The amount of time spent together as a team makes “the ups and downs of the team more intense. While a club might value diversity of thought, a team needs to work as one unit,” said Gallari. Although he sees off-the-court friendships as an indirect influence on team success, Parker also believes that working together strengthens the team. Last year, the women’s basketball team had only eight players, who, because of the small size, “faced a lot of adversity together, and grew stronger because of it,” said Harper.

Growing together emotionally is also a large part of the rugby teams’ bond. Dorman points out that 16 players, almost half the women’s team, are seniors. They all came in as freshmen, many “not even knowing what a rugby ball looked like. But they are never really cocky towards the new players” because they remember being inexperienced too.

Weishaupt also notices bonding across the classes. “The older players want to look out for the freshmen. We give them an automatic support system.”

So, yes, these teams are very close. They must be to win, which many of them do. While some are busy labeling them and stereotyping them, they’re working hard to bring prestige to the College, without the fanfare they would receive at a Division 1 school. Instead of going to a school that focuses on athletics, they all chose to come to the College for the same reasons you and I did: the beauty of the campus and the variety of the courses. Some even came to be a part of the open and accepting atmosphere for which the College is most famous.