Sprint Football: Questions surround program’s future

In the first game of the 1999 season, the sprint football team did something that it hasn’t done in an official game since: win.

Following their 12-7 victory over Cornell at home, the Tigers dropped the next five games of the 1999 campaign. The next season, they went winless again. And then again. And then again.

Since that fall day, the Tigers have dropped 80 straight official games.

More than a decade later, the sprint football team stands out as a dull spot in an otherwise impressive athletic program, raising questions about the true drivers of the team’s lackluster performance and equally difficult questions of possible solutions. Despite the team’s historic losing streak, University officials and the team’s alumni association both agree that the team’s existence as a varsity sport — in the short run, at least — is relatively secure. Yet they voice profound disagreements about the most effective and realistic way to break the tailspin.

Prior to the late 1990s, the sprint football team was fairly competitive. The team frequently posted winning seasons, including a league championship in 1989. But towards the end of the ’90s, according to Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67, several club teams began to seek varsity status and began to fight with the sprint football team for admissions slots. Men’s water polo, men’s volleyball and men’s wrestling — which had formerly been a varsity sport before it was demoted — won varsity status. The University had a decision to make.

“The denominator with regards to teams got larger, where the number of admissions spots for athletics stayed the same,” Walters said. “You have got to make choices.”

In 1997, the University athletics department cut the number of spaces for the sprint football team from six to two; two years later, it was cut to zero. These slots were distributed to the new teams in what Walters described as a “triage decision.”

The allocation of recruitment slots, Walters said, boiled down to a utilitarian calculation: How many wins would each recruitment spot bring to the University? Sports like water polo and volleyball, he explained, needed a greater number of recruitment slots in order for the team to remain competitive.

“Sprint football would require too many admissions slots and would compromise too many other programs,” Walters said. “We can give two, four or five spots to sprint football, and that’s not going to effectively change anything.”

P.J. Chew ’95, president of the team’s alumni association, disagreed that the sprint football team required a substantial number of recruits in order to remain competitive. Chew cited the teams’ success in the 20th century with only six recruited athletes.

“If we get a couple good athletes, that can be the difference from losing all our games to winning half our games to winning our championships,” Chew said.

Walters, however, did admit that the allocation of recruitment spots may indicate a priority given to certain teams rather than a cut-and-dry effort to maximize wins. Walters admitted that the University athletics department places a greater value on men’s water polo and men’s volleyball — the teams that inherited sprint football’s slots — than it does on sprint football. Because sprint football is not an Ivy League or NCAA sport, he explained, the athletics office prioritized other squads.

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“We can’t be all things to all people,” Walters said. “We have to make tough choices.”

These tough choices 10 years ago, according to Chew, have directly changed the sprint football team from a moderately successful team to a flagging athletic program. It is not a coincidence that the team started its decline around the same time that the University withdrew admissions slots for recruited sprint football athletes, he said.

“If you see the record books, it’s clear as day,” Chew said. “Recruits aren’t a guarantee for having a winning season ... but it is necessary to remain competitive and to give yourself a chance to win.”

First-year head coach Stephen Everette, however, downplayed the significance of the lack of recruits. He more broadly ascribed the team’s struggles to the small roster, the lack of a full-time coaching staff and poor marketing. Everette did, though, recognize the hardship inherent in being a walk-on team.

“When you’re playing against teams that have a certain number of slots and then they have walk-ons ... it kind of puts us behind the eight-ball,” Everette said. “I’m not going to sit here and say that [the lack of admissions slots] has nothing to do with this.”

Even if the University did manage to add more admissions slots for sprint football, Everette said he worried that the recruited athletes would be unable to handle the academic rigor of the University. With a team comprised totally of walk-ons, he explained, he has a guarantee that his athletes can handle the pressure off the field.

Despite pressure from the alumni association, there seems to be no real movement toward adding admissions slots for recruited sprint football players. So while Chew encourages the University from outside FitzRandolph Gate to better accommodate the program, Everette is working from within to field a better team. The team sends letters to every high school football program in the country telling them about their program and encourages former high school athletes at Princeton — football or otherwise — to join the team. The team has also been in communications with the varsity football team about sharing playbooks and even players.

Though there has been no motion toward demoting the team to club status, Walters said that the sprint football team is in a “tenuous position.” The team forfeited a home game against Navy this season because it did not have enough healthy players, and, though the squad showed signs of promise under Everette, the record speaks for itself.

“I’m realistic — it’s on life support right now,” Walters said.