32% of Williams’ points come from men’s and women’s cross-country or track & field.

Williams Rower is right, though: Midd and the ‘herst are fast catching up. In fact, Midd has dashed right past Williams in one sense because it took crew (a club sport at Midd that doesn’t give Midd Directors’ Cup points) for Williams to hold onto the cup this year. And I suspect that Tony Marx and Tom Parker are making such a big splash (the splash is big; the results aren’t of commensurate magnitude but the media are buying the story big time) with their low-income diversity initiative that I suspect it will soon be the ‘herst’s time to hog the #1 USNWR top spot for a few years.

It will be interesting to see what the Williams PR and substantive responses will be. I wonder whether there will be an answering initiative from Williams (I’m thinking of something like the tutorials initiative of a few years ago, and a series of initiatives to promote and support student research and travel over the last few years). Will there be clues in the major reunion classes’ upcoming reunion gifts or other announcements of alumni giving? Are there any reports or studies coming out of Willims that might provide clues? Or are we “just” concentrating on tweaking the residential housing/social system and constructing several major new buildings?

The unsporting way to “solve” the entire situation would be for Williams to 1) make women’s water polo a varsity sport and recruit heavily to make it spectacular and 2) join the anti-USNWR rankings move while the college is still on the top. But that would be unsporting.

On another topic: I guess many people are tired of the Coach White stuation/story, but does anyone know if there have been any updates? It looked to me as though he could stay, have a short-term contract, complete a real M.A., and reapply for the longer-term contract (all easier said than done, of course), but other people in these threads don’t seem to be viewing that as a viable possibility. I’m wondering what will happen to the XC and T&F programs next year.

If the college has to hire a new head coach, is that typically done/able to be done over the summer? If not, would they step someone who is already coaching at Williams into an interim head coach position? Do athletes have input into who is hired? Will a departing coach be likely to be able to get a good job for the fall if he (i.e., Coach White) starts looking in June?

On another note, Midd and the ‘herst are really closing in. I doubt that Tony Marx and Tom Parker can keep the big athletic recruiting and big low-income/under-represented minority recruiting in balance and not lose academic footing, but Williams had better watch its tail!

But, Middlebury is closing fast. Morty is going to be under some serious pressure to step up recruiting and keep our cup where it belongs.