How do quality athletes and talented students ever find Macalester? As many of the coaches reluctantly admit, nobody really comes pounding on cubicles in the department begging to play.

The small applicant pool and competition with the best schools in the country often affects recruiting. Many athletes make first contact with their athletic programs through direct mailings. Head football coach Dennis Czech sends out 7,000-10,000 flyers every year and expects 10-15 percent to be returned. From those he may get 100 applicants. Of those about 50 will make it through the "chopping block" in the admissions office.

For the football program, making it through admissions is the biggest obstacle, but what about the smaller programs? We did not have a single first-year student on the women's basketball team this year.

"I thought I had a good pull on five kids, but they didn't come. They went to better schools," said head women's basketball coach Mary Orsted. If it comes down to equal academic experiences, athletes will choose the school that places the most emphasis on athletics.

For this reason we lose quality athletes every year to the other top academic schools. "If you are a softball player and you are looking at Macalester or Stanford, it's not a difficult decision," head softball coach Tina Johnson said. "We're in the gray area that is so tough. It's hard for us to compete with those big time schools. There are few really talented student-athletes that look at Macalester and even fewer who can get in here."

Macalester tour guides have been known to point out the bleak athletic situation when wandering by the football field.

Macalester's small applicant pool means two things. First, if we're ranked 26th nationally, we often lose the top students. Second, since we're not known as a perennial powerhouse for anything but smoking pot. It is hard to get really talented athletes interested.

"I need six or seven great players every year to improve my program, but often I get just a few. It is hard to convince quality athletes to come play at the bottom of the conference," Johnson said.

Czech agrees. "We could do a better job. But when you really go at it for a year or two and then stop and look around, you have so little to show. It's really frustrating."

"Everybody is going to blame each other, but nothing is going to change until the administration says we want successful programs—successful means the opportunity to compete," head soccer coach John Leaney said. "That means coaches have to work harder but it also means admissions needs to take some risks."

Let's say a talented athlete responds well to recruiting, survives the "chopping block" in admissions and plays several seasons on one of the small struggling teams. Because there aren't any visible signs of team improvement and the campus environment provides no support, the athlete may decide to go abroad. When she returns, she doesn't attend another practice.

Senior starting pitcher Adrienne Dorn quit this year after playing for three seasons and going abroad last semester. The decision was one of her hardest. "It took me more guts to quit the team than if I'd stayed," Dorn said.

Dorn said it wasn't really about winning, coaching or lack of recruiting. Softball just wasn't a priority anymore. If student-athletes don't see improvement or find support, it's easy to develop new interests or maybe do what Dorn did. "I felt like I just outgrew softball."

All of the teams mentioned in my last article suffer from players leaving too early for a variety of reasons—lack of commitment, frustration with other players and coaches and studying abroad. The softball team lost four upperclassmen this season, including Dorn.

Recruiting, admittance, and retention are only one aspect of the complex problems the athletic department faces. Next week I will compare Macalester and Carleton's athletic departments. Here is the first shocking statistic: In 1996, both the Macalester and Carleton women's basketball teams finished with 4-16 records. This year, we went 2-20. Carleton is 20-2, resting in 6th place in the country and enjoying a first round bye in the NCAA national tournament.