Two years ago, former Princeton president William Bowen ignited a firestorm by claiming that collegiate athletics were too professionalized and too intense.

Last month, he published another book directly targeting athletics at smaller schools, and coaches at Harvard are already denouncing it.

For the first time, Bowen used data from Harvard to argue that some small schools are so focused on athletics that they are forgetting their academic mission.

Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values, a follow-up to The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values, is armed with what Bowen calls stronger data from all Ivy League schools and a narrower focus.

“I think that now that this kind of evidence is really available for the first time, it just gives more weight to the concerns that people have expressed,” Bowen said.

But many coaches and alumni see the publication of the second book, which focuses on smaller colleges and universities—in the Ivy League, New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and University Athletic Administration—as an attack on the leagues that work hardest to ensure academic credentials. His 2002 book The Game of Life focused on NCAA powerhouse schools such as Michigan and other Division IA schools.

“To take a look at the two leagues [Ivy and NESCAC] that are the most pure and most balanced regarding an athletic experience and an academic experience, to make strong, damaging claims that are unbalanced is wrong,” said women’s basketball head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

Walking On

In Reclaiming the Game, Bowen and co-author Sarah Levin ’00, a graduate student at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former all-American sailor, argued that spots on intercollegiate teams should not be limited to recruits but open to any students.

While recruits are likely to be underqualified academically, “walk-ons” would better reflect the academic level of the rest of the class, they argue.

But coaches say they could not run a team without recruited athletes, who they say bring a high level of dedication and commitment to their team.

“The kind of early athletic specialization that...is happening across the U.S. has reduced ‘walk-on’ participation at every level of athletics, across the country,” Ivy League executive director Jeff Orleans wrote in an e-mail. “So the Ivy League’s experience isn’t unique, nor is our outlook: the common collegiate experience is that fewer folks are interested in being walk-ons.”

Head Football Coach Tim Murphy attended a roundtable with Bowen and various league administrators and coaches last spring, where Murphy said he confronted misconceptions about the “culture of athletics,” including the idea that non-recruited students want spots on the varsity football team.

“We welcome walk-ons but, believe me, they are almost non-existent because most want a much lower level of competition and commitment,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail.

Women’s ice hockey coach Katey Stone said she also does not think non-recruits have the desire to spend so much time honing their skills on the field or on the ice.