The Tufts Daily
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
23
SPORTS
The NESCAC map
Welcome to the New England Small College Athletic Conference, an elite group of Div. III sports teams more commonly referred to as the NESCAC. In the 2012-13 season, NESCAC teams combined for seven NCAA Championships ― Williams men’s and women’s tennis and women’s rowing, Trinity men’s squash, Amherst men’s basketball, and Tufts field hockey and softball. The NESCAC also holds four of the top 10 spots in the Directors’ Cup standings — Williams (1st), Middlebury (3rd), Amherst (6th), and Tufts (8th). In preparation for another promising year of competition, the Daily presents the NESCAC.
Middlebury Panthers
Bowdoin Polar Bears
Colby Mules
Location: Middlebury, Vermont On the Field: Middlebury teams have won 31 national championships since 1993, including 21 in hockey and lacrosse. The women’s lacrosse team made a bid to add to that total last season, but fell in the Final Four of the NCAA Div. III tournament. Although the Panthers haven’t won a national team title since 2010, they do boast the current NCAA Div. III women’s tennis singles champion. Mascot Madness: With similar colors and logo to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, hopefully Middlebury students won’t show up to football games expecting to see Cam Newton. They will be disappointed.
Location: Brunswick, Maine On the Field: Not to be outdone by swimmers Basyl Stuyvesant and Teri Faller, who each set team records in the 100 backstroke, Bowdoin Professor of Economics David Vail set a national record (1:14) in the same event for the 70-74 age group at the National Senior Games in Cleveland this summer. Bowdoin’s two NESCAC titles last year came in men’s and women’s ice hockey. Mascot Madness: A polar bear seems a fitting mascot for Bowdoin. Its fur most resembles the clothing needed to survive winter in Maine. On a separate note, the Princeton Review recently gave Bowdoin its “top college food” award. We imagine the students look a lot like 1,000pound bears, walking around campus wrapped in fur after loading up on salmon quesadillas.
Location: Waterville, Maine On the Field: Not exactly known for its athletic prowess, Colby hasn’t had much success to speak of. A cool bit of trivia, however: Eric DeCosta, the captain of Mules football in 1993, is now the Director of Player Personnel for the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens. Mascot Madness: The mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, the infertile offspring of two species that are not meant to breed. The symbolism here is uncanny. Bowdoin is the large majestic horse, and Bates is the smaller but very useful donkey. And then there are the Colby Mules.
Hamilton Continentals Location: Clinton, New York On the Field: Hamilton hasn’t had a top-two finish in the NESCAC in any sport since men’s golf was the runner-up in 2008. Granted, not all of Hamilton’s teams have always competed in the NESCAC, but since the Continentals fully joined the conference in 2011, they haven’t seen much success. Mascot Madness: The college’s true mascot is the Continental, a reference to the Revolutionary War and school namesake Alexander Hamilton. But at sporting events, rather than have a student wearing a continental soldier costume, the school is represented by a pig named “Al-Ham” (get it?) dressed in Hamilton athletic gear.
Bates Bobcats Location:Lewiston, Maine On the Field: Bates has just one NESCAC championship to its name, courtesy of the 2012 men’s track and field team. The Bobcats finished second in men’s track and field and women’s rowing last year. Mascot Madness: Bobcats are fast, agile, athletic — and boring. In a league that features polar bears, purple cows and the guy with the smallpox blankets, Bates comes up short on creativity.
Williams Ephs Location: Williamstown, Massachusetts On the Field: Williams dominated the NESCAC last year, winning the conference title in eight sports and finishing runner-up in another seven. The women’s track and field team won 12 straight NESCAC titles from 2001-12 and has taken 18 of the last 20. This past spring, the Jumbos shocked the world (or at least the ‘CAC) by winning both the men’s and women’s track and field crowns. Mascot Madness: The Williams mascot is a purple cow. Need we say more? In the words of poet Gelett Burgess, “I never saw a Purple Cow / I never hope to see one / But I can tell you, anyhow / I’d rather see than be one.”
Amherst Lord Jeffs Location: Amherst, Massachusetts On the Field: Amherst boasts the oldest college athletics program in the country, dating back to 1860. The Lord Jeffs have won nine NCAA Div. III Championships, six of which have come in the past seven years — the most recent of which came in men’s basketball last season. Mascot Madness: Named after the school’s benefactor, Lord Jeffery Amherst, “Lord Jeff” is the most controversial mascot in the NESCAC. That’s because Mr. Amherst may or may not have approved a plan in 1763 to give blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans. (Spoiler alert: He did, in fact, do that.)
Trinity Bantams Location: Hartford, Connecticut On the Field: Trinity finally earned another NESCAC title in football in 2012 after finishing runner-up for the three previous years. That marked the sixth conference championship for Bantams football, on top of one in 2008 and four in a row from 2002-2005. But where the Bantams truly dominate is on the squash court. The men’s team didn’t lose a match from 1998 to 2012, building a 252match winning streak that is the longest in the history of intercollegiate athletics, in any sport. The team has won 14 national squash titles in the last 15 seasons. Mascot Madness: The Trinity Bantam is the least intimidating mascot in the NESCAC. A bantam is a particularly small breed of chicken, named after an Indonesian city to which it is native. Why would a college in Connecticut choose the bantam as its mascot? Allegedly, an alumnus described Trinity in a speech as a proud rooster, compared to the big shots of the ‘collegiate barnyard.’
Wesleyan Cardinals
Connecticut College Camels
Location: Middletown, Connecticut On the Field: Wesleyan’s most recent NESCAC championship was in softball in 2010, although it did earn two second-place finishes in baseball and men’s lacrosse last year. The Cardinals’ baseball team played in the NCAA Div. III Championship game — in 1994. More importantly, Wesleyan has probably graduated more influential sports figures than any other NESCAC school. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, former Jets head coach and current ESPN analyst Eric Mangini and Chicago Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer are all Wesleyan alums. Mascot Madness: Living in the shadows of the St. Louis, Arizona and Louisville Cardinals has likely stunted the growth of Wesleyan’s athletics program.
Location: New London, Connecticut On the Field: The most notable endeavor at Conn. College in a long time was the men’s club soccer team’s release of a nude calendar for a fundraiser in 2012. Oh, right — the volleyball team was runner-up in the NESCAC Championship. Mascot Madness: On the college’s 99th birthday in 2010, Conn. College revealed a new — and improved? — camel mascot. Search “Introducing the New Camel” on YouTube. It’s worth the 45 seconds.
Editor’s Note: This article contains information used in past Matriculation issues.
— compiled by the Tufts Daily Sports department