April 10, 2006
Greetings ‘C’ Club members,
First, if you have not seen the notice, we have three excellent Hall of Fame inductees for the June Reunion:
- Kevin Birkholz ’76 – Football, Basketball, and Track & Field
- Michelle Eisenreich ’96 – Track & Field
- Kevin Theissen ’96 – Cross Country and Track & Field
Second, please note the arrival of a new football coach, Kurt Ramler. He is a native of the Minneapolis suburbs, played with distinction at St. Johns, played and coached in Europe, and most recently, coached at Heidelberg College in Ohio. He gives every indication of being a good coach and a good fit for Carleton. Visit the Carleton website at www.carleton.edu/athletics for the complete press release or for information about any of the Carleton athletic programs.
Winter sports, as you can see on the accompanying dope sheet (link in upper right-hand corner), are led by two excellent basketball seasons, solid swimming, and a national-level synchronized swimming program. The latter is hard for me to assess, given the limited number of varsity teams (as opposed to clubs) and the limited participation of small colleges, but one can only go against the available competition, and Carleton did that well.
Two athletes seem to deserve special note:
- Megan Vig, a senior from Northfield, has finished a fourth truly great basketball season, and is mentioned by those in the know as the best female basketballer since Kat Frewing ’92 or of all time!
- Steve Harris, a senior from the St. Paul suburbs and a 2005 cross country All-American, finished third in the NCAA Div. III 5,000 meter run.
Carleton swimming hosted the men’s and women’s NCAA Div. III national championships at the University of Minnesota facility in March. A more difficult project (“Where are the paper clips?” … “Who has the key to the Xerox?”) is hard to imagine, but it went very well.
A couple of meandering thoughts on Carleton athletics:
*Recruiting for teams that require but a few top participants (cross country, basketball, tennis, etc.) remains easier than that for those needing numbers (football, swimming, track, etc.) and the win-loss records often reflect it.
*One of the interviewed candidates for the football job raised an interesting, not-unrelated question. He mentioned the problem he faced in a selective Missouri school with a tough football schedule: “Even if we get our share, there aren’t enough good Div. III football players in Missouri with 1400+ SAT scores; we have to recruit out-of-state.”
“Is Minnesota different from Missouri? If not, what does the coach do, recruit inferior players or bring in a team toward the bottom of the class each fall?”
He went on to say he thought he would need two full time assistants and a recruiting budget to have a competitive team that would fit comfortably into Carleton at this time.
I wonder how close to the mark his assessment was and to what sports it might apply.
Sincerely,
Bill Huyck ‘53
C-Club President