Crawfordsville, Indiana | April 26, 2013 | Volume 105, Issue 25
President White ...
Photo by Corey Egler ‘15
... Celebrates Wabash Stories PATRICK WHITE
PRESIDENT 2006 - 2013 As I think back over my time at Wabash, the sights and sounds rush together, but remain distinct and alive: the roar of the crowd in Hollett Little Giant Stadium, the Chapel carillon ringing out an old hymn on a crisp fall evening, the sound of laughter echoing in the Goodrich Room in a Board of Trustees meeting or faculty meeting (yes, there is laughter there), the quiet halos cast by the lamplight on the mall on winter nights, the voices of the Glee Club, sweet and clear in Salter Hall. And through it all come the conversations, the conversations grand and small in which all of us at Wabash find the language to understand ourselves, who we are and who we can become. Coach Morgan making MOWNBU (Men of Wabash Nothing Breaks Us) a motto for the track team and a lesson for all of us. Dean Mike Raters seizing on the “Always Means Always” resolute cry of the football team, down 21-0 at halftime of the North Central game playoff game in 2011, and coming back to win in grand fashion, and making it a cry as common as Wabash Always Fights, from which it springs. And the College spinning my notion that Wabash is a place that takes young men seriously into a marketing campaign and a commitment that can be parodied and joked about, but nonetheless taken seriously at the same time.
Seriously. Similarly the language of the Gentleman’s Rule, our mission statement, which every Wabash man knows, the words and phrases from “Old Wabash” and the Alma Mater, such as “spread the fame of her honored name” resonates throughout our community, cropping up in casual conversations and our most solemn proclamations, reminding us that we are a community deeply grounded in words, bound by the language through which we evoke who we are. Through our conversations in person, face to face or via email and other media, we find common ground (or not), discover that we agree or disagree with one another, and create the scaffold on which our common love of Wabash is built and given expression. I remember long meetings with my great president’s staff - the deans, CFO Griffith, and Senior Director Amidon - in which we carried on the routine and sometimes extremely not routine work of leading the College when, for several hours every Wednesday, we would work to know Wabash deeply and fully, argue with one another, puzzle over difficult matters without easy answers, and discern by our lights the best direction for Wabash. I remember many conversations often delightful even when difficult, sometimes painful even when necessary, conversations with faculty, staff,
PHOTO COURTESY OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
alumni, or students that helped form who we are, what we know about Wabash, and our communal imagination of what Wabash can become. Sometimes the conversations I remember most are the brief, but grand-in-their-own-way conversations, a chat about a student’s hat as we walk across the mall, a reassurance from the men of 13 Harry Freedman that the campus is safe and sound even though the power is out, a welcoming hello as Chris and I grab an excellent burger from the Sphinx Club before a baseball game, a congratulatory word and an appreciative response after a play or performance or game, a brief
chat as a pledge class begins to paint the Senior Bench. Sometimes in these conversations I have been a mere listener, a fortunate witness, hearing the perceptive question in Lovell after a visitor’s lecture; learning of the ways in which students, faculty, staff, and alumni see an issue or address a crisis, or articulate their affection for Wabash, or plan for the future of this great College; shaking hands of championship football, track or cross country teams as they got off the bus, exhausted, sometimes in the very wee hours of the morning. As you all know, whether students, faculty, staff, alumni, or friends of the College, the work we do together at Wabash is sometimes hard work, work that takes every bit of our wit, energy, wisdom, faith, and courage. Being Wabash is serious business; greatness is never easy. But I will also remember the fun and the laughter, the sheer joy that bursts forth from just being Wabash; and I will remember the kindness and the care, the attention that was always paid to how we should be Wabash together, to our best imagination of ourselves. Wherever Chris and I go we will remain connected to this lovely place and even more to you who are Wabash, to that moveable feast of Wabash College that shines brightly wherever Wabash men and all those who love the College live out the dream of Wabash.
Athletic Director, Trainer Detail Incident
Wrestling Coach Denies Infraction
JOHN DYKSTRA ‘13 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The Wabash College wrestling program came under scrutiny earlier this year when a student-athlete wrestled despite medical orders to stay off the mat. The National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) sanctioned the wrestling team for a violation of medical protocol that occurred January 11, when the team wrestled in the Bud Whitehill Duals at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa. The violation of the medical protocol entailed a wrestler wrestling without being medically cleared. The College’s medical and athletic training staffs assessed the wrestler 24 hours before the team travelled to Williamsport and ruled the wrestler was ineligible due to a communicable skin disease. The medical staff also had an outside physician evaluate the skin disease who also deemed the athlete ineligible. “The athlete came in and had some sort of communicable disease,” Head Athletic Trainer Mark Colston said. “We took him to our phy-
sicians here. They confirmed the communicable disease. He was not cleared to wrestle for that weekend. “Head Coach Brian Anderson and the athlete were informed of that the day before they travelled.” Anderson declined April 19 to be interviewed about the incident. He also implied The Bachelor had been Colston misinformed and denied anything had happened. After interviews with the Dean of Students, Athletic Director, and Head Athletic Trainer, the wrestling coach was given a second opportunity via e-mail to respond Tuesday before The Bachelor’s traditional Wednesday deadline. He did not respond to that inquiry. The Athletic Department self-reported the incident to the NCAA and NWCA after the athletic training staff recognized the wrestler’s name appeared in the meet results.
“We do not travel to a lot of wrestling events,” Colston said. “So, we watched the stats and meet results because we care about the athletes. We saw the athlete was in the results, and we reported it to Joe Haklin. And he took care of it from there.” Haklin self-reported the incident a few hours after the meet results were posted. The sanctions against the wrestling team are confidential as part of the College’s cooperation with the NCAA, which works in partnership with the NWCA. The NCAA vacated the team’s wins for weight infractions (DQW) for the two matches in which the wrestler participated. The College published the disqualifications on the wrestling team’s schedule on the Wabash website. “We violated the NCAA medical protocol of intercollegiate wrestling,” Haklin said. “We internally discovered that the student-athlete wrestled and did not wait for somebody to point it out to us. We pointed it out to everybody else. We self-reported once we realized a young man wrestled who was not supposed to wrestle by the medical protocols established by the NCAA. “They sent a letter from the NCAA wrestling
committee, which put some stipulations down that we were to follow, which we did to the T.” Wrestlers who see physicians for a communicable disease receive an NCAA skin sheet that states whether or not the athlete is clear to wrestle. The sheet also includes information about what the disease is, where it is on the body, and how long the athlete has received treatment. Athletes can wrestle with certain communicable diseases if they have been treated for a certain amount of time and they cover the disease for competition. The wrestler and the Haklin coaches are responsible to provide the skin sheet to the athletic trainers who perform skin checks at the host facility. At skin checks, the wrestler strips down to his underwear, raises his arms, and rotates so that the athletic trainers can search for abnormalities. If
See INFRACTION, Page 2