Dear President Wright, Ms. Harper, and Dean Larimore,

 

The following is what Dartmouth College said to me, as well as my fellow teammates, on the morning of November 25, 2002.  It was implicitly stated in cutting the swim and dive teams, but also stated outright at various meetings. 

 

I hope this perspective will help to shed more insight onto the situation. 

 

Sincerely,

Mia J. Yocco

Captain, Women’s Swim and Dive Team, 2002-2003

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November 25, 2002

 

Dear Mia,

 

            Good morning.  We are sorry that you heard from sources other than us that the team you have given your heart and soul to over the past 3.5 years will be eliminated this March.  Gone forever.  You can never come back as an alum and watch meets, to cheer for the new generation of Big Green Swimmers and Divers.  They will not exist.  After many storied years of Dartmouth Swimming and Diving, we, as the administration of Dartmouth College, decided that it would be better to kill off one team than ask other teams to make small sacrifices.  Surely you understand the poor economy that we are dealing with, the money issues that we, as one of the richest institutions with a $2.2 billion endowment, must face.  Surely you can understand that we in no way wanted to jeopardize the competitiveness or progress of other athletes at this College, athletes that you, as a swimmer, work just as hard as, if not harder.  We listed these teams to your face so you can better understand our position.  Men’s lacrosse, football, volleyball, men’s basketball.  These athletes are valued more than you and your teammates, both on and off the field.  We must make THESE teams more competitive in the Ivy League and beyond so that Dartmouth will not face embarrassment.  We are trying to rationalize the fact that being the only Ivy League school without a swim and dive program is less important than being competitive in a higher profile sport. 

            Mia, it makes sense that you didn’t see this coming.  It is contrary to our mission statement and the purpose of athletics at Dartmouth.  We are including the reference if you happened to forget. …“The purpose of all Athletic Department activities is to foster and compliment the overall academic and intellectual growth of Dartmouth students and provide experiences that will enable them to interact in a special way with other students, test their own personal limits, and gain from the demands and realities of athletic competition and the success and adversity that go with it”.  No Ivy League school has had to discontinue two Varsity athletic programs in recent years, but Dartmouth wanted to set the precedent on this one. 

            Mia, we truly are sorry.  We cannot seem to give answers that satisfy you and your teammates.  We thought we covered all our “bases”  (no pun intended) beforehand by creating the “Swimming Q & A” website.  Here you will find 5 pages of questions and answers that many people worked very hard on over the weekend; they worked so hard compiling the press release and this addendum because we decided just a few days ago that the swim and dive teams would be cut.  We decided to announce this the day after both teams handily beat the University of Vermont.  We decided to make this announcement after both teams integrated into their team family the two strongest recruiting classes in many years.  We figured now would be the best time to announce our final decision (that was made with only various employees of the College) because 22 men and women that you all worked so hard to recruit and convince of Dartmouth’s superiority to other schools applied for Early Decision to the College.  We regret misleading these twenty-two men and women to think that they could pursue their life passions academically and athletically at the highest caliber.  We are sorry that these twenty-two men and women knew Dartmouth College was dropping the sport they were recruited to compete in after the deadline to apply early to other schools. 

If only you could’ve realized that swimming wasn’t worth your time.  Swimming for Dartmouth wasn’t worth all the mornings that you got up at 6 am after heading to bed at 2 am to finish a project.  Swimming wasn’t worth taking labs for your pre-med classes at night.  Swimming for Dartmouth really didn’t teach you how to be a leader, how to become more physically fit, how to fight adversity and come out stronger, how to have a family with no blood relatives involved, how to get up one more time than when you fall down.  Swimming didn’t teach you how to manage your time, how to be a part of something bigger than yourself, something that has tradition.  Swimming did not teach you how to be a better student, to budget your time wisely, to be a student that proved to your professors that athletes here are smart and care about academics.  It was probably something else that taught you these invaluable life lessons that you will never forget.

Perhaps, Mia, you should’ve realized by now how decisions that effect the entire Dartmouth community are made by a select few in the upper echelons of the administration.  As an education minor, you probably recall when we wanted to rid ourselves of the Education Department (which offers some of the most popular classes at this college) a couple of years ago.  Clearly, the College has its priorities in line when trying to offer a broad liberal arts education that provides it’s students (whose families pay $38,308/year) with a breadth of opportunities for human and intellectual growth. 

So Mia, for our sake, please go quietly.  Please, we hope that you are really busy with your other activities and forget about your heart.  Some of us can admit that we did indeed rip your heart out, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it, but can’t you see the benefits for Dartmouth as a result?  We did this to only 57 others as well (although we probably shouldn’t underestimate the large number of students and alumni, athletes and non-athletes alike, who also feel this way).  We seem to not yet understand the repercussions of our act.  But we’ll be here to talk.  Please go quietly and without a fight.  And have a Happy Thanksgiving. 

 

Regards,

 

Dartmouth College