Student athletics are important to a cohesive campus

If you haven't noticed from the general bent of my columns, then I will be the first to tell you that I am an avowed supporter of the ongoing debate on campus intellectualism. The motivation behind my interest in campus intellectualism, in fostering an attitude of knowledge for knowledge's sake, is to enhance Princeton not only as an educational and intellectual institution but also to bolster a general sense of true distinction, to add to the genus loci that makes Princeton a unique and exceptional university. I have perhaps been myopic in my approach, however, focusing only on the intellectual to the detriment of Princeton's myriad other facets.

My own restricted viewpoint was never more apparent to me than when I was talking with some friends on the swim team a few weeks ago who had just returned from winning the H-Y-P double dual meet against Harvard and Yale. Barely edging out Harvard in the last relay, my friends regaled me with stories of great swims, close races, and alumni sightings. The description of the general "rah-rah Princeton" atmosphere of the event made me almost regret my decision to stop swimming after my sophomore year.

I missed the bonding of the team, the unique feeling you get from working together and accomplishing a goal as a group. I missed being a part of that kind of group, where each individual's success is celebrated as part of the team's aggregate accomplishment, allowing each teammate to share in another individual's achievement as if it were their own and magnifying the feeling of success for that individual. I missed cheering for my teammates and being cheered for by them.

It is this mutual respect, admiration and excitement that athletics fosters. And it is this mutual respect, admiration and excitement that is so integral in establishing a unique and distinctive identity for Princeton. Academics are important, surely, but there are no fans in Firestone and, more often than not, reporting a successful day's work on my thesis upsets friends who are, perhaps, a little behind in their work.

This frequent occurrence indicates the level of rivalry among students that occurs even here at Princeton, whose level of competition is reputed to be less than its peers. We are, after all, overachievers who like and are used to being the best. Athletic team sports provide a means, however, for students to share in one another's success without their own feeling of accomplishment being threatened.

Although I do feel a little "left out" because I am not part of this year's HYP-winning team, I also realize that being in the water is not the only way to incite my pride and enthusiasm for Princeton. In fact, merely hearing my friends' tales from the meet spurred those feelings of excitement and esteem for Princeton. I can share in the success of the team in an analogous way that the teammates experience each other's accomplishments as their own. I do not feel like I need to jump in the pool to 'catch up' with my peers, the way hearing about my friend finishing the third chapter of her thesis makes me want to run to the library.

This is not to say that Princeton should become [more of] a jock school; nor is it to downplay challenging and rigorous academics as constitutive of Princeton's persona. I am also not trying to suggest that athletics are the only way to further develop a specific and unique Princeton identity or that Princeton athletes aren't also engineers or English majors. Rather, I am trying to argue that athletics provide one cohesive mechanism for the University, one means by which, for at least part of Princeton's population, we can feel good about ourselves and where we go to school. For all the bad connotations that are frequently (and often mistakenly) tied with athletics — anti-intellectualism, drinking, exclusivity — there are plenty of good effects.