Administration's Damper on Athletics
Trinity’s success on the football field in the 1980’s was less than impressive, producing only 29 wins throughout the entire decade (trinitytigers.com). Although these shortcomings continued into the early 1990’s, there have been years of success sprinkled in throughout the late 90’s and early 2000’s. This lack of success in the 80’s could be due to the hiring of President Calgaard in 1979, when he outright stated that he intended to put an extreme amount of increase in importance of education, although the school had already gained a stellar reputation in regards to academics. This is described in Claire Poole’s Trinitonian article about President Calgaard’s implementation of higher academic expectations for Trinity. Poole states and quotes the President: “Thus, Calgaard wants to see students growing socially as well as raising academic standards. ‘There has to be some strain on the students to make them work harder’” (Poole, pg 7).
The administration even got rid of a historical practice of football attendance in 1989. As described by Chris Hart in his Trinitonian article about lost traditions of the university, the first-year students used to be required to attend and cheer at all home games, which shows how some students at least tried to make attempts to be supportive and engulfed in football games for a period of time. Hart went on to quote a former professor and student, Professo Kownslar, who stated students “would have to be there and yell the whole game… It was also an opportunity to haze them.’ One can only imagine how long into Dean of Students Coleen Grissom’s tenure that ritual lasted” (Hart, pg 21). This highlights the university administration’s lack of support for requiring first years to attend football games because they considered it “hazing.”. This implies that Dean Grissom had a history of introducing strict rules governing student campus living, including this damper on football attendance.