A Little Goes A Long Way

Tucked into the northwest corner of Massachusetts in the rolling Berkshire hills, Williams College stands as an object lesson in the often sordid world of intercollegiate sports. What's so refreshing—and remarkable—about Williams is that its athletic program, the most successful in Division III, wins big and spends small.

A recently released NCAA study reports that money spent on college athletics is (no surprise) wildly out of control. Average expenses at Division I-A schools ballooned to $20 million last year, a 15.6% jump from 1997. " Ohio State spent $63 million on its teams," says Daniel Fulks, who is the report's author and a professor of accounting at Kentucky's Transylvania University. "It's gotten crazy. We ought to put 50 schools in their own little world and let them do their thing. Everyone else should play Division III, where they do things the right way."

Nobody does it better than Williams, which competes in the 11-school New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). The Ephs (named for college founder Ephraim Williams) have won four of the past five Division III Sears Directors' Cups, awarded to the school with the best overall performance in NCAA competition. The last time one of Williams's 16 men's and 15 women's teams had a losing record was almost two years ago.

At a school where nearly 40% of the student body plays on a varsity team, it's appropriate that the new president is an avid sports fan. Morton Schapiro, the former dean of arts and sciences at Southern Cal, had a satellite dish installed at the president's house so he could watch every Trojans football game this season. But Schapiro has no immediate plan to increase the modest athletic budget at Williams, a school with an endowment of $923 million (the largest, by $300 million, in NESCAC). "Maybe athletics is a victim of its own success," Schapiro says. "[Our teams] do it on a shoestring and win national championships. That isn't exactly great incentive to admit more athletes or to give better facilities."

Operating costs for Williams's teams in the 1999-2000 academic year totaled $426,000, slightly below the NESCAC average of $464,000. "Would I like to see more money?" asks the school's first-year athletic director, Harry Sheehy. "Of course." The football team (which finished 5-3 this fall in what, at Williams, passes for a down season) spent just over $30,000 last year. "You can't run a football team for less than that," Sheehy says. "If you took $1,000 from the budget, we wouldn't be able to run the program." In 1999, the 131 Division III schools with football teams spent an average of $58,000 in direct game expenses.

"I believe you can make a case that we're underfunded," Sheehy says, noting that his school's budget is spread over a league-high 31 varsity teams. Sheehy insists that cutting a team is not an option. What his department is left to do, then, is to save in every possible way. Williams reports that it spends $1,151 on recruiting in a conference that averages $9,200. Mike Russo, coach of the men's soccer team (which finished 17-2 and was ranked No. 1 in Division III most of the season), is given only $200 each year to spend on recruiting. A single weekend trip easily costs Russo more than $600, and the difference comes from his pocket.

Players on the women's soccer team (11-7 this year and an NCAA Final Four participant in 1999) receive just $3 per meal when they're on the road. Lisa Melendy, the coach for 16 years, often goes to a Stop & Shop to maximize the allotted money by buying bagels, yogurt and juice. "We use the same uniforms for four years, the same warmups for five or six years and the same travel bags for 10 years," Melendy says. "Other [NESCAC] schools change them much more rapidly."

While most NESCAC schools send their players to away games on charter buses, many Williams teams travel in vans, often with the coach behind the wheel. New England roads can be treacherous in the winter. "Our budget is very low for what we're trying to do," Melendy says. "At the same time, we get it done."

Williams's facilities are far from spectacular. The ice hockey rink has the feel of an old airplane hangar when a strong, cold draft blows through it. Williams is one of a quickly shrinking number of NESCAC schools without an artificial turf field, essential for training during long stretches of inclement weather. The football field's antiquated stands are creaky and unstable. More than a decade ago, Williams's facilities were ranked the best in the conference, but since then nearly every school has made significant renovations. In the past year alone Bates spent $4 million on improvements and Hamilton $2.5 million.

Where Williams is not frugal reveals its priorities. "If you look at reasons that we have separated from the pack, I would point to the coaching staff," Sheehy says. "We have coaches who clearly could work at the next level."