Play The Game OR Interview For Rhodes Schol?

What a dilemna! On one hand he has a commitment to his teammates. On the other hand the reason to attend college is to build a resume to secure your future. For those not from New England, Harvard-Yale is a big time, long time rivalry of genuine student-athletes.

I say go to the interview. Apologize to his teammates. His teammates will understand. They're in college for the same reasons.

To provide perspective to some who may not understand, my son spoke with a similar college. He was told if there's a game and an exam at the same time he won't be on the bus. Yale cares far more about this kid getting a Rhodes Scholarship than beating Harvard (even though beating Harvard is a big deal).

If I remember correctly, a Florida State player had this a few years ago as well. He went to the Rhodes interview. Absolutely the thing to do, in my opinion.

The FSU player was able to do both. Unless something changes, it appears that the kid at Yale will not be able to do so.

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Originally posted by baseball17:
If I remember correctly, a Florida State player had this a few years ago as well. He went to the Rhodes interview. Absolutely the thing to do, in my opinion.

Wow. That is a tough one. Neither is the wrong decision. BTW.....the kid has a big time arm. I'm sure the Harvard guys would chip in to get him a plane ticket to Atlanta for the interview. Harvard is 5-0, and Yale is 3-2 in the Ivy in case anyone is wondering. I wonder what the magic eight ball would say?

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I'm sure the Harvard guys would chip in to get him a plane ticket to Atlanta for the interview.

LOL. Be a tough decision, but it's great that he has to make it!

play ball

While I would have advised him to attend the interview he felt a commitment to help his senior teammates beat Harvard once. Within Harvard and Yale this is a huge rivalry. Players don't want to finish their careers not beating the other team.

Good for him. I don't agree with his decision, but I certainly understand it. I hope Yale wins, however it won't effect the conference standing. Harvard is trying to run the table as Penn did last year. BTW....Harvard beat Yale the last 4 years.

Maybe his dream is to get drafted and play pro ball

Personally I would have preferred to have him do the interview since the backup at Yale is a good friend of my son whom he played travel baseball and basketball with for years when they were growing up.

He will make a name for himself on his own the next two years.

I would have voted for going to the interview. Having the opportunity to be a Rhodes Scholar is an amazing, life changing thing. I would assume that Yale, as an Ivy, would have loved for him to have become a RS. I did hear an interview with the coach before the decision was made, and he sounded like he was not pressuring him to play. I would like to think that the player support for him missing the game would be strong.

I guess that it is possible that 10 years from now he will think that his life was made better by playing the game instead of trying for the Rhodes Scholarship. Maybe he felt like he would let the team down to not play. Maybe he is an athelete/student more than a student/athelete. And that's ok, too.

It is also possible that he will wonder why the heck he passed up a chance to be a Rhodes Scholar to play in one game, even if it was the Harvard Yale game.

Oh well, a nice problem to have!

I read if he attends grad school he will become eligible to interview again in an upcoming year.

Part of the college experience is making connections. If he stayed and won it may better serve him in business connections by Alumni.

As in, "This kid is such a team player and Yale man, he passed on a Rhodes Scholarship for the chance to beat Harvard. I want him working for me."

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Originally posted by Doughnutman:
Part of the college experience is making connections. If he stayed and won it may better serve him in business connections by Alumni.

As in, "This kid is such a team player and Yale man, he passed on a Rhodes Scholarship for the chance to beat Harvard. I want him working for me."

Nope! A Rhodes Scholarship is the golden key to success.

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Originally posted by RJM:
Nope! A Rhodes Scholarship is the golden key to success.

You got that right. Being the most prestigious scholarship in the world, he would have punched his ticket and would have limitless opportunities in the workforce and reach the highest levels in any field.

I think he made the wrong decision but it's his choice and his life.

It's a good problem to have though.

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Originally posted by RJM:

Nope! A Rhodes Scholarship is the golden key to success.

While you are most likely correct being that a Rhodes Scholarship is considered the most prestigious in the world, I don't think Doughnutman is necessarily wrong either. Networking works wonders, especially at a school like Yale.

There are probably many factors that are going through a person's head in a situation like this. Obviously the young man is talented and brilliant, and I am sure that his decision was not made without serious thought or without serious consideration of future endeavors.

I said maybe. Is the kid old money? Parents rich as heck? Merely throwing out possibilties. He may be successful no matter what he does. Grandpa might have been initial investor at Microsoft.

I would have taken a chance at the Rhodes. My brother got it.

Thanks for the advice coach! Tom Williams, head coach at Yale helped convince Patrick Witt he should play the Harvard game rather than interview for a Rhodes Scholarship. Williams told Witt he passed on a Rhodes Scholarship to attend an NFL mini camp. When a news reporter did a little background research by contacting the Rhodes Trust the response was, "Who?"

Yale University has launched an internal investigation into Williams' resume before deciding if he will remain as coach. So much for coach's integrity in this situation.

rut roh

Gotta love that. Fire the coach now. Credibility is gone.

I would think that a Yale football player that was invited to be a Rhodes Scholar is most likely to be successful whether he takes the test or not. I think just the fact that he was invited would be a separator on his resume and show that this guy is special.

The kid is on the fast track in football and the real world.

Perhaps he should have interviewed>

Harvard wins by a lot to a little

Harvard 45, Yale 7

Oh well. Sometimes you learn the hard way by making the wrong decision. There's a lesson learned in there somewhere.

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Oh well. Sometimes you learn the hard way by making the wrong decision. There's a lesson learned in there somewhere.

Are you suggesting the wisdom of his decision is measured by the outcome of the game? If he really believed that, he would have failed the interview anyway.

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Originally posted by Tx-Husker:

Are you suggesting the wisdom of his decision is measured by the outcome of the game? If he really believed that, he would have failed the interview anyway.

Nah. He just made the wrong decision. With a 45-7 beatdown, it only makes the decision to turn down the Rhodes Scholarship even worse. The snart thing to do would'ce been to do the Rhodes Scholar thing.

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Originally posted by zombywoof:

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Originally posted by Tx-Husker:

Are you suggesting the wisdom of his decision is measured by the outcome of the game? If he really believed that, he would have failed the interview anyway.

Nah. He just made the wrong decision. With a 45-7 beatdown, it only makes the decision to turn down the Rhodes Scholarship even worse. The snart thing to do would'ce been to do the Rhodes Scholar thing.

Zomby--
Do you really think the Yale QB wasn't smart enough to know his team, which barely edged the bottom teams in the Ivy League, was a heavy underdog to a Harvard squad that had run the table, winning all their league games by at least two touchdowns?

It takes a lot of gall to say he made the "wrong decision" because he played the game and lost.

Maybe he just wanted to play in the game. Maybe he couldn't stand the thought of his team taking a beating without him. Maybe he loves football and couldn't pass up the last game of his career. Maybe he has other career opportunities, and the Rhodes scholarship wasn't all that important to his goals. Maybe he has another way to get to Oxford or a graduate program he prefers. Whatever his reasons were, they were his reasons, and you have no basis for second guessing him just because the game turned out the way everyone expected it to.

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Whatever his reasons were, they were his reasons, and you have no basis for second guessing him just because the game turned out the way everyone expected it to.

I already posted it was his decision. But IMO he made the wrong decision. Frankly, I could care less what he does but stated my opinion.

you have to understand the Yale Harvard rivalry---it is unique unto itself

I think he can re-apply for the Scholarship in a year or two. I'd love to hear him give the reasons for his decision in an interview (not for media.) He would likely be very persuasive.

I think we are talking about a young man that makes pretty good decisions on a regular basis. I'm not too worried about his future.

Each nominating district interviews between 12 & 16 applicants, of whom only 2 will receive scholarships.

So, this QB passed up a 12-15% chance of becoming a Rhodes Scholar and seized a 100% opportunity of forever being known to the entire Yale alumni community as the guy who put The Game ahead of personal ambition. Come to think of it, this decision probably put him in good stead with the Harvard alumni, too, just as a matter of mutual respect.

I doubt it was an economic decision, but if it was, it might have been a shrewd one.

Besides, to get as far as he did in the selection process, he earned at least a 3.8 GPA at Yale and prevailed in a rigorous competition to get a school nomination. This young man has created many good options for himself.

It's a no win situation - he was forced to choose between two life goals. He's been playing football for a long time and to make the commitment to play at a high level means that he cared about it. Of course not playing in the last game of his career would truly devastate him. But the other hand is that he's worked his whole life on academics and here he has a chance to receive a scholarship that only the best of the best can get. Either way he goes he's going to be letting down part of his life's ambitions and goals - that's not an easy thing to swallow. I don't want to speak for this young man but giving up the scholarship might be the best decision. Yeah he's letting himself down but that's the only person he's letting down. By not playing he's letting a whole team down. I don't know about anybody else but I hate letting my team down because I know the hard work they went through to get there. Even in the face of overwhelming odds and probably sure defeat you don't want to leave your buddies to the wolves - you want to go down fighting with them.

Not sure if this is really relevant but just two weeks ago we were getting ready for our first round playoff game. My school has never won a playoff game in it's history and we're getting ready to play a team that we could beat but it would take us playing really well. Tuesday our head coach gets an email from our starting defensive back / tight end that he will not be attending the game because he has to take the SAT the next day. The game was four hours away and we ended up getting back at 2:30 in the morning.

When we talked to the young man who is a senior about this he was on the verge of tears. There was a good chance this would be his last game as a high school football player because he's not good enough to go to the next level. He said he and his father fought about it most of the night before but he wasn't going to budge.

We told the rest of the team what was going on and not to hold it against the young man. Let's face it they did and it's still awkward for them two weeks later. I also believed it took any wind out of our sails too. He wasn't a huge part of our team but he's been a pretty consistent contributor to the team.

Obviously this is a grown man versus a high school kid and the college player had complete choice whereas my kid didn't have one. The purpose of this story is to show that it's a no win situation. Maybe it's not relevant situations but I can sympathize with this guy based on what I've seen. How would you tell your team mates that in the biggest game of the year when your outnumbered that you won't be there for them?

Witt signed with Nebraska out of high school. He decided to leave Nebraska and his teammates to transfer to a different school...which turned out to be Yale. I don't recall the exact reason he transferred, but it seems to me it was lack of playing time and a coaching change that brought a different style of offense. I think the decision he made here shows some signs of growth and maturity on his part. I'm happy for him...he's got a bright future in front of him.

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Originally posted by TRhit:
you have to understand the Yale Harvard rivalry---it is unique unto itself

Harvard and Yale care more about which school has more Rhodes Scholars than who won the football game. I say this understanding Harvard and Yale think their football game is the top rivalry in the country. They do so under the guise it's the biggest "student-athlete" collegiate rivalry in the country.

In retrospect and with apologies to Woody Allen, would Witt really want to be part of a club that has Rachel Maddow as a member?

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In retrospect and with apologies to Woody Allen, would Witt want to be part of a club that has Rachel Maddow as a member?

Did she QB Yale to a loss against Harvard too?

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Originally posted by Tx-Husker:

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In retrospect and with apologies to Woody Allen, would Witt want to be part of a club that has Rachel Maddow as a member?

Did she QB Yale to a loss against Harvard too?

There's a Cheerleading Bush joke in there somewhere...

A bit more to the story according the NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01...holar-candidacy.html

It appears Witt tried to make himself look like a hero and making a personal sacrifice for the benefit of his team. The reality is he knew he had no chance for the Rhodes since he knew he was possibly facing sexual assault charges.

We have an alumnus from our travel program that played at Stanford, was drafted, then had a choice between a playing career and pursuing a Rhodes Scholarship that he was all but assured of (don't ask me how he knew that, I have no idea). He chose to play ball and claims he has no regrets (he's an absolutely great guy). But in moments of candor, he still professes some second thoughts now that he's out of the game. If the choice were between the interview and a single game, that seems easy; take the interview. If the is between taking the scholarship and a playing career, it seems that's a whole different ball of wax.