The College Court | Don't worry Vassar, we're only winning

Emma Carmichael Columnist

You may or not be aware by now that the Vassar men’s volleyball team did something pretty incredible last Friday night, Feb. 22. They beat the team that was then ranked No. 1 in the country, Nazareth College, in only three games: 30-23, 30-28, 30-24.

Prior to the win, the American Volleyball Coaches Association had ranked Vassar No. 6 in the country.

With the volleyball team jockeying for a place in the national tournament, the men’s basketball team looking for an automatic berth into their national tournament this weekend, the women’s rugby team competing in nationals this spring and junior swimmer Emily Love headed to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Swimming and Diving Championships in the 100 and 200-yard backstroke events, Vassar College athletes are proving themselves capable of competing on a nationwide scale. But the question remains: What will it take for the student body to notice?

This is no call for Vassar’s entire student population to suddenly drop Marx or biochemistry textbooks and sprint from the Library basement to Walker Field House. I don’t mean to interrupt anyone’s hextuple-shot-extra-foam-fat-free Americano or Retreat gossip session to see a friend compete in a game (or two). And I really don’t mean to intrude on someone’s Friday night plans, which will probably include a “party foul,” but definitely not a technical foul.

I get it. Not all Vassar students are into athletics, just as not all Vassar students are into attending lectures, plays or a cappella concerts.

Even so, I’d like to describe the scene that I took part in that Friday night at the volleyball game, when the mighty Brewers beat the No. 1 team in the country for the first time in the history of the program—for those of you who couldn’t make it.

Both sets of stands in the Field House were filled to capacity, and the risers upstairs were packed full as well. Parents, siblings, students, professors, coaches and President Catharine Bond Hill herself sat side-by-side, screaming in delight as the home team fought its way to upsetting the “Oh-Ver-Rated!” (Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) Nazareth Flyers. We stomped our feet on the trembling bleachers, we high-fived across rows, we started chants, we jumped up in elation and screamed in a deafening, unruly pack as senior Tom Pawlowski slammed yet another kill over the net. We couldn’t believe it. We were going to win.

But the “we” represented here is a sad proportion of the Vassar student body. I would estimate that there were no more than 75 students there, out of the 2,500 or so on the entire campus. And a significant number of those in attendance, maybe even the bulk of them, were fellow student-athletes.

I suppose this makes sense—people who play sports generally tend to be more interested in watching them played. But using this as an excuse is like saying that only an art history major can truly appreciate the latest exhibit at the Lehman Loeb Art Center.

And at a place like Vassar, there are no “Rocks for Jocks” (a euphemism that sport-obsessed universities use for geology courses that tend to accommodate less academically-inclined athletes). Here, the senior sitting next to you in sociology who is writing a thesis on genocide in Rwanda might also be the star of the field hockey team. At Vassar, this kind of divide shouldn’t exist.

In Division III, the small-school collegiate athletics division, the students who play sports cannot consider magazine covers and ESPN highlight reels an incentive to compete. There is no wall of celebrity and superstardom blocking the athletes from the students. Our athletic rosters aren’t full of future National Basketball Association stars; they are made up of our friends and classmates.

And if for no other reason, we should support them because we care for them and want to honor their efforts and see them succeed.

That’s why, at the volleyball game last Friday, I found myself, along with the rest of the crowd, chanting “Tul-ly Owns You!” (Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap), “Tul-ly Owns You!” as sophomore Phil Tully came up for a momentum-swinging kill against Nazareth in the third game, one of his 20 in the contest. But as the game ended and we jumped up in celebration at what the Brewers had just done, the moment felt a little bittersweet. Where the hell was everyone?

This is not a call for a dedicated allegiance to Vassar athletics, for memorizing statistics and obsessively checking the most recent scores. We don’t go to Ohio State University, which has a jaw-dropping $109 million athletics budget. We go to Vassar College, which doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, and where a few teams (like women’s basketball) hardly have a full roster.

And yet here we are, just over halfway through the year, with our teams competing on the highest possible level.

Cross-country runner Colin Sanders ’08, the Senior Class President, also happens to be an NCAA All American and National Qualifier and last year’s Liberty League Runner of the Year.

And tennis player Debbie Sharnak ’07, a double major who is now working at a humans rights organization in Manhattan, was also one of seven national finalists for NCAA Woman of the Year and was a two-time first team All American. Did you ever see her play?

As I write this, I’m sitting in the empty bleachers at the Field House, watching the women’s tennis team win its first match of the spring season against Muhlenberg College. Right now Vassar is ranked No. 25 in the entire country and No. 7 in the northeast. But please, I don’t mean to interrupt. Your latte’s getting cold.

—Emma Carmichael ’10 is an urban studies major and a member of the Vassar women’s basketball team. This semester she is editorializing on issues in all divisions of college-level athletics.