Now that’s coaching! Better than old school.
They face Ithaca tonight.
As a graduate of rival Dickinson, who played football against Swarthmore (they never should’ve dropped it), and who worked with Dickinson basketball when they beat Swarthmore for the Centennial Conference Championship in the 90s, it’s great to see the Garnet representing excellence in ALL arenas. This fraudulent idea that selective institutions shouldn’t attempt to be great across the board is anathema to the true spirit of a liberal arts education which is to educate the entire person, not just the mind.
My current employer, Bowdoin, along with schools like Johns Hopkins, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford, are dominating in all facets of the educational experience for their students including athletics. No critical thinker, driven by data, would ever accuse those schools of sacrificing academic integrity or standards for athletic glory even though they do win all the time.
Team sports especially teach us that you can be a lousy human being and pass a math class, but you will never succeed in a team environment that way. That’s what the athletics experience provides for those who are privileged enough to be engaged in it at any level. The amount of personal growth in college coupled with that type of lesson is huge. As a bonus, in my almost twenty years of experience in higher education, the data shows that most of the students engaged in athletics, perform better academically than their non-athletically engaged counterparts.
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Really enjoyed this article, the coach and players. But I gotta root for Brooklyn College!
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Said to see, a fine school like Swarthmore only gets a mention for a silly DIii thing. DIii!
America is obsessed about the wrong things. Very disheartening.
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Such stories reveal the impact of preparation on performance. But, how much was it the luck of the recruits to all come together at the same time? Any one of them could have gone somewhere else. Then it would be a different team with a different record no matter what the regimen of aphorism and time on task.
The American Myth is built of rags to riches stories of those who work hard and get ahead. It downplays the hard luck stories of those who work hard and barely tread water as simply not disciplined enough. It completely leaves behind the unfortunate stricken with illness or disease. No heroic myth for them. You're on your own. It's not a myth of pulling everyone together out of the ashes of defeat, but beating up the other guy and leaving him to anonymous failure.
These kids are lucky. Lucky to be tall, with good ankles, admitted to Swarthmore. What are they going to do with the world they inherit?
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@larkspur
It's hard to get into Swarthmore but harder to get out. The academics are among the most rigorous anywhere. What will they do with the world they inherit? Coming from a small school, greatly out of proportion to its size, Swarthmore alums have received Nobel Prizes, Rhodes Scholarships, MacArthur genius awards, Fulbright Scholarships, and the like because they know how to work hard, work smart, and engage the world with intellect. These students make their own luck because they push hard, play hard, and are passionate in what they do.
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You go Garnet!
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Would love to see them play the Oregon women’s team.
Go Garnet! - '80
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When we had an unexpected football team back in about '65, we had to make up the cheerleader costumes, because academics are primary at Swarthmore.
But a sport that does not cause brain damage is made for the Little Quakers --- all that spirit for goodness is what all the waiting in Silence for the still small voice is about.
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Swarthmore, founded by Joseph Wharton, his mother and a few other Hicksite Quakers, loses to the college founded by Quaker Johns Hopkins. Was there cheering, or did fans sit in silence?
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Hail Swarthmore!
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Great spirit, fine writing—more than a point-in-time story.
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I’m happy to see that Swat is enjoying some athletic success! I just hope that they are able to balance all of the work!
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Uplifting. Thanks!
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This is so uplifting. It's rare, but I love it when great liberal arts colleges field great basketball teams.
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Having been connected to the college for over twenty years, I cannot help but see this as another saddening symbol of a college which values the liberal arts upon which it built its name less and less. Money, time, and attention are being pored into STEM and athletics to make a school (with a multi-billion dollar endowment) even wealthier, while neglecting the arts and humanities along with the rest of this country.
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@Bernard But I think you can do both. I'm sure these young men are outstanding scholars as well, no?
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‘95 Swattie here. I’m thrilled the team is doing well, and this piece was so fun to see!
However I take issue with the angle that in past decades, there wasn’t much school spirit around basketball. Plenty of my classmates and I loved going to games to cheer on our friends and other players. We got out of our quiet study carrels at the library and made a lot of noise for the team.
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Best story I have read in a long time. This experience will make these guys better men. Kosmalski should be very proud.
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@Skye6206 Great story. I’m sure this is the first #1 seeded team in Division III in decades. I’ve never heard of one before. Let them play in the Div I tournament if they have a player that reminds people of Kevin McKale. Or is what I read just hyperbole.
Great story! DIII sports are what college sports should be.
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@ChapelThrill23 Division III is the ONLY college sports. The other divisions are pro sports, and the schools that support them are, though some are excellent universities, failing in their ethical responsibility to their academic mission and to their claimed goal of producing well rounded graduates.
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