It is a time of astounding change at Dartmouth College in nearly all realms. The announcement of Jim Yong Kim as the College's 17th President marks a new era for Dartmouth. The Dartmouth has been feverishly analyzing the implications of Kim's selection, and critics have been quick to question the decision.
What has not been analyzed to an appropriate degree is the issue of how the change will affect Dartmouth athletics. The announcement of Kim followed just three days after the announcement that Robert Ceplikas '78 will take over for Josie Harper as interim Athletic Director in July. With the combined weight of these two announcements, the face of Dartmouth athletics could rapidly change in both the short and long terms.
As a quick diversion, let me note that Ceplikas will be the Athletic Director for one year's time while the College seeks a permanent replacement, which in and of itself is absolutely ridiculous.
When Indiana University's Athletic Director Rick Greenspan unexpectedly resigned in late June 2008 amidst the Kelvin Sampson coaching scandal, the University selected Greenspan's replacement in just four months, with no interim Athletic Director. Josie Harper's resignation was not entirely unexpected, and the best Dartmouth can do is hire a replacement a year after an interim AD is designated? Why must everything take so long?
Let's hope President-elect Kim can get rid of some of the excess bureaucracy that plagues the operations of Dartmouth.
More important is trying to determine what effect Kim will have on the Dartmouth athletic scene. At first glance, things look promising. Kim was apparently the starting quarterback on his high school football team in Iowa. Fantastic. Iowa plays good football, so he must have been at least decent.
Apparently he also enjoys playing basketball, tennis, golf and volleyball. Who knows? Maybe I'll see him on the basketball courts one of these days.
But taking a deeper look, there are some disturbing truths about Kim.
As the starting quarterback for Muscatine High School in his senior year, Kim led the team to a winless record, which, according to Kim, "[put] the finishing touches" on his high school's 56-game losing streak. Yikes. Obviously it wasn't entirely Kim's fault, as his team had obviously been losing games for some time. But for a man who was named one of America's 25 "Best Leaders" by U.S. News and World Report in 2005, his failed leadership on the gridiron has to be a small mark of shame.
Sure, Kim commented that he hopes to "[do] everything [he] can in helping the Dartmouth College men's football team win the Ivies again." But if 0-56 is what potentially lies ahead, I am not comforted.
In all seriousness, however, all this obviously means nothing in how President-elect Kim will lead this College, in particular our sports teams. He is a proven leader with the demonstrated capacity to change the world, one miracle at a time.
Maybe his first miracle as President will be a winning football season next year, or an Ivy League championship in men's basketball. He certainly has an opportunity to make his mark early with a solid Athletic Director hire next year. Make a great choice there, and perhaps he can start turning things around.
The men's basketball program is close to a championship (though Alex Barnett '09 graduating will most likely be an unavoidable step in the wrong direction), and the football team can go nowhere but up.
Sure, as student after student claimed in Monday's "Short Answer" in The Dartmouth, Dartmouth will never be, and I'm paraphrasing here, the Indiana University of basketball, but we can most certainly be better.
Fifty years and counting is much too long between Ivy League championships in men's basketball, and the most successful football program in the Ivy League cannot settle for winless seasons.
President-elect Kim has devoted his life to helping to cure the world, and now he has the opportunity to spend the next years of his life changing Dartmouth for the better.
I hold out hope that betterment extends to varsity athletic performance.
