For the seventh time in the league's existence, the NESCAC All-Academic honors were announced on Nov. 16. But this year, the Daily went inside the numbers to crown the smartest of the Maine schools, to find out whether there really is any truth to some "safety school" reputations, and to settle some bragging rights off the field. Here's what we found ...
1) We're better than Williams. Yes, the Ephs raked in two NESCAC championships (football and men's soccer), and the 43 Williams players on the All-Academic list is higher than Tufts' 34. But when considered as a percentage of the student-athlete population, Williams' swollen rosters make the difference. As a percentage of all student athletes, Williams comes in at 13.4 percent, while Tufts hits 15.0 percent. Tufts also had two of the highest-ranking teams: six of its 21 women's soccer players (28.6 percent) and five of its 19 field hockey players (26.3 percent) made the list.
2) Amherst is better than all of us. The smallest school in NESCAC had the highest percentage of its student-athletes (20.4 percent) on the All-Academic list. The Lord Jeffs also had two of the best teams: 10 of its 30 men's soccer players made the cut, while four of its 10 volleyballers did so.
3) Women won the Battle of the Sexes. Of the 894 women competing in NESCAC sports, 160 (17.9 percent) made the All-Academic list, while just 10.5 percent of men did so. As measured by the percentage of a sports' total participants who made the cut, six of the top eight were women's sports, while the bottom three were all men. Of the sports with both men's and women's teams - cross country, golf and soccer - the women did better in all three. Water polo was the exception, but it is played at only one NESCAC school (Conn. College), which makes it a fake sport at a fake school. Just kidding ...
4) This is one NESCAC competition that Hamilton didn't lose. Trinity put a league-low 5.9 percent its student-athletes on the list (12 of 202 total) , coming in well below Hamilton's 8.3 percent. Remember that "safety school" chant at last year's Tufts-Trinity men's basketball game? So do we.
5) Bowdoin isn't just better on the field than the other two legs of the Maine rivalry - the Polar Bears were a combined 12-0-1 against Bates and Colby in the fall 2006 season - but it's better in the classroom, too. Bowdoin put a league second-best 17.7 percent of its athletes on the list, beating Colby (14.3 percent) and Bates (9.6 percent).
Here are the full results, broken down by sport and school:
Amherst (46, 20.4 percent) Bowdoin (46, 17.7 percent) Middlebury (34, 15.2 percent) Conn. College (24, 16.7 percent) Tufts (34, 15.0 percent) Colby (30, 14.3 percent) Williams (43, 13.4 percent) Wesleyan (28, 13.3 percent) Bates (22, 9.6 percent) Hamilton (10, 8.3 percent) Trinity (12, 5.9 percent)
*Only varsity-level at Bowdoin**Only varsity-level at Conn. College
Women's Rugby* (10, 28.6 percent) Women's Cross Country (45, 21.5 percent) Men's Golf (21, 18.9 percent) Volleyball (23, 17.4 percent) Women's Soccer (40, 16.9 percent) Men's Soccer (43, 16.2 percent) Women's Golf (8, 16.0 percent) Field Hockey (33, 15.3 percent) Men's Cross Country (56, 15.2 percent) Men's Water Polo** (1, 6.7 percent) Football (38, 5.2 percent) Women's Water Polo**(none)
- by Liz Hoffman
