Union College: Some History

[Rolevio]

Re: Union College: Some History

Am I correct, no scholarships

No athletic scholarships. RIT and Union are the two D1 programs not allowed to offer because they elevated to D1 after the cut off date.

[jericho]

Re: Union College: Some History

Now that Union made the Frozen Four (can't believe I just said that) maybe now you can get a legitimate DI rink...

[Veritas]

Re: Union College: Some History

Eph72 -
Thanks for that information. As you might guess from the user name I am Harvard alum and fan but a nephew/godson went to Union and loved it.
I have been watching you and cheering for you since Harvard's season ended.
Awesome game tonight against Lowell.
Best of luck to Union in the Final Four

[duper]

Re: Union College: Some History

You're right. Before they were the Garnet and the Crimson, respectively, I think both schools called themselves the Magenta. Really.

This doesn't surprise me. The University of Chicago sports teams are still called the Maroons.

[uniontrack]

Re: Union College: Some History

Now that Union made the Frozen Four (can't believe I just said that) maybe now you can get a legitimate DI rink...

Not gonna happen very soon...

Union has a policy of not starting a capital project until 100% of the funding is in place.

This no debt policy has served Union well over the years and until the project is announced and the funds fully raised, Messa stays.....

Besides, if it annoys other teams so much, why are we thinking about new digs

Keith.

[duper]

Re: Union College: Some History

No athletic scholarships. RIT and Union are the two D1 programs not allowed to offer because they elevated to D1 after the cut off date.

They're not allowed, like, by the NCAA? I don't understand.

[Rolevio]

Re: Union College: Some History

They're not allowed, like, by the NCAA? I don't understand.

it's one of the NCAA division regulations (I believe a D3 regulation) but play-up schools are not allowed to offer scholarships unless they were grandfathered in. And I believe for hockey that meant you had to be playing at the D1 level prior to 1971 though I am not clear on the date.

[Veritas]

Re: Union College: Some History

It might also relate to the fact that 5 of the teams in ECAC are Ivies and cannot do athletic scholarships by Ivy League rules.

[Rolevio]

Re: Union College: Some History

It might also relate to the fact that 5 of the teams in ECAC are Ivies and cannot do athletic scholarships by Ivy League rules.

Has nothing to do with that (though a former Union president may have gone along with that philosophy if the NCAA allowed U to give scholarships)... and there are 6 Ivies.

[hanasoni]

Re: Union College: Some History

Union College is also the home of the CRP (Character Research Project) in the '50s and '60s, which many protestent churches used as curriculum guides for Sunday Schools. I grew up in Detroit and when our local church decided not to use it anymore, my mom and dad took us kids to Central Methodist Church, which is very, very close to Comerica and Ford Field. That's how I got to know downtown Detroit so well.

But enough history, you folks made the Frozen Four - Congrats. But, so did my team: GO DAWGS!!!!!!

[uniondutch21]

Re: Union College: Some History

Union is not allowed to give athletic scholarships. This is an NCAA policy due to the restructuring back a couple years ago. Union was not part of that policy, might not have had D1 hockey at the time. St Lawrence, RPI, Clarkson are exempt, and can give athletic scholarships. In recent years, there has been a change to the financial aid policy in which athletes can get preferential financial aid.

With that said, if you think the hockey players are paying for Union you are grossly mistaken. I remember being in classes with the goalie, captain and a couple guys who were 4th liners, none of them paid for school.

[union07]

Re: Union College: Some History

Unfortunately it is not true that they receive preferential treatment in the financial aid process at Union. They fill out the same forms as everyone else and are evaluated on the same criteria. Some hockey players receive financial aid packages that are quite generous and others pay their own way depending on family circumstances.

[RENCEB]

Re: Union College: Some History

As a Merrimack grad, class of '78, I remember the late '70's situation at Union. It was great to read the SI article again. Perhaps my favorite game ever was MC defeating Union at the then Volpe Center in the '76-'77 ECAC DII finals. That Union team was loaded, with Steve Baker in net and boy could they skate. We always thought Harkness was playing fast and loose with the rules, and it all came crashing down the next year.

[Greyeagle]

Re: Union College: Some History

This has been very interesting...thank you.

[Eph72]

Re: Union College: Some History

This has been very interesting...thank you.

Well then, here's a little (actually a lot) more

I have a little time today so I might as well tell the story of former Union President Roger Hull and why he said in around 2004 that “winning 40% is ok”.

Its been alluded to several times in this thread. I was going to leave it alone, since its not too complimentary to Hull and I like Union, a lot, but the more I think about it, it is instructive in several ways, including how some college Presidents think, how the NCAA works, and most importantly how small college Union hockey has made its way from D3 to Tampa. In any event Hull’s thinking no longer prevails in Schenectady. As always corrections and additions are welcome.

If you have read this thread up to here, you know that Union dropped hockey after World War II. This is somewhat strange since Albany has always been a hockey hot bed, RPI is located one town over, and Union’s historical arch rival, Hamilton College, had (and has) a very strong hockey tradition. But, anyway, they did. (As a minor side note, when I was a student at Williams College in the early ‘Seventies, we (a handful of former high school players) formed a club team and played other New England college club teams, including Union’s. If memory serves, there was no rink at Union at all at that time and we played them in Saratoga Springs. Perhaps there is a former Union club player from those days who remembers.)

Prior posts in this thread also recount the decision to reinstitute varsity hockey, and the decision to join the NESCAC, hire Ned Harkness, leave NESCAC, and fire Ned Harkness. In hindsight, being part of NESCAC and hiring Ned Harkness to lead your hockey program to national prominence were grossly inconsistent decisions and they were never going to live together. The interesting thing is that Union is in every way (except hockey) the prototypical D3 school. It has a small enrollment of about 2200, it doesn’t give athletic scholarships (and never has…it gives “need-based” aid), and it has always purported to emphasize academics over athletics in everything it does. So hiring Ned Harkness to lead the hockey program was probably never going to work and, in fact, within a few years both Harkness and the president who hired him were gone and Union hockey, in the late 1970’s, returned to D3. (See post #1 in this thread.)

Except not as a member of NESCAC. I have often wondered whether Union regrets this decision. With the advent of the US News and World Report rankings the NESCAC has emerged as an identifiable group of highly rated and visible small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast (with Amherst and Williams perennially at the top of the rankings) and virtually every NESCAC school is now ranked ahead of Union. This has to hurt since in all likelihood they would have been in the middle of the pack had they stayed in the conference. Maybe yes, maybe no…just speculating…

In any event, in 1990 a former corporate lawyer turned college administrator named Roger Hull became Union’s 17th President. He was a Dartmouth and Yale Law grad and had been president of Beloit College in Wisconsin. He inherited Union’s D3 hockey program.

No sooner did he take up the reins than the opportunity to move up to D1 re-presented itself. In January 1991, the New York Times momentously reported,

“Union College of Schenectady, N.Y., will join the Eastern College Athletic Conference's Division I hockey league next season as a replacement for Army. In a realignment of the league's 12 teams, the Dutchmen will be linked with nearby Rensselaer as a partner on the road and at home.

On Monday, Union's president, Dr. Roger H. Hull, accepted the invitation extended by ECAC Hockey after a month's deliberation. The opening came when Army, which has had little success since commencing a full 22-game schedule in 1986, decided to play as a Division I independent beginning next season.”

So the die was cast and Union formally went D1 in hockey, but remained in every other respect a D3 school.

Ken Schott reported in the Schenectady Daily Gazette,

“…But there were hurdles to climb. For starters, Hull didn’t want the hockey players to be treated any differently than the rest of the students and the other sports programs, which competed at the Division III level. That meant no athletic scholarships, which Union could have done by petitioning the NCAA to allow it, or no preferential aid packages. "It was just difficult,’ said [then coach Bruce] Delventhal, now the athletic director of Plattsburgh State University. ‘We were going to have to be different from the standpoint that there were different expectations. The way I see it, it’s the difference between an honors class in chemistry and a regular class in chemistry. There are different expectations of that honors class.’… “

The inherent tensions between D1 major college hockey and Hull’s lofty liberal arts college aspirations would prove problematic. Although the team had intermittent modest success, it mostly floundered in the basement of the ECAC and many people wondered if and when Union would pull the plug and return to D3. Delventhal was replaced by Stan Moore as coach and in 1996 Union reached the playoffs. Moore was named ECAC Coach of the Year. Emboldened, Moore asked for more support from Hull and was flatly rejected. Like Harkness in the 1970’s and Delventhal before him, he upped and left.

Assistant coach Kevin Sneddon was elevated to varsity coach of the beleaguered program. Sneddon’s coaching career didn’t start well. The team went 3-26-3 in 1998, including 1-19-2 in ECAC play, probably the low point of the program.

In the summer of 2000, Val Belmonte, a former college hockey coach at Illinois-Chicago and director of coaching at USA Hockey, became Union’s athletic director and recruiting improved and wins began to follow.

Then, as things seem to have often done at Union, things got worse. And Roger Hull was in the middle of it.

I will continue with the Roger Hull story in the next post.