Dear Jack,
This weekend, a historic season for Macalester football got even more memorable.
In Jacksonville, Ill., with 52 seconds left in the Midwest Conference championship game, the Scots kicked a field goal that broke a tie and carried them to a 30-27 win over Illinois College. This championship is Macalester’s first football conference title since 1947, and it’s a huge accomplishment for head coach Tony Jennison, his coaching staff, and all 73 student-athletes in the program, in just its first year in the Midwest Conference. The win also extends the team’s eight-game winning streak, part of a school-record nine-win season.
Next up for the Scots: the program’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division III playoffs. On Saturday, they’ll travel to face defending Division III champion University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at 12 p.m. You can follow Saturday’s game at www.ncaa.com—and you can also send a good luck message to the team through Mac Social by adding the #heymac hashtag to a Tweet or Instagram post.
I know the team has thrived all season on the energy in the stands from families, students, staff, faculty, and alumni. Please join me in congratulating the coaches and football players on a thrilling year so far and wishing them the best of luck in Saturday’s game.
I’m a very proud alumni of Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Those four(-plus) years was one of the defining experiences of my life. I went from being a naive, not at all worldly, small-town Minnesota boy to being a young man who wanted to see the world and make it a better place. For the most part, I think I’ve succeeded at that. What I’m most grateful for about my time at Macalester is that I learned how to learn, and I left with a keen interest in and curiosity about the world around me that’s stuck with me to this day. What I gained there was priceless, and it’s helped make me the person I am today.
I can wax rhapsodic about my love for Macalester and its reputation for academic excellence…but I haven’t been able to brag about Mac’s athletic program. I was a goalkeeper on the Scots’ soccer team, and we were, to put it charitably, not very good. I loved the game, but success was hard to come by. My last season saw us limp to a 2-12-1 record. I finished with six concussions (it was 30 years ago when it was “getting your bell rung”).
Football was even worse. During my time at Mac, the Scots lost 54 games in a row, setting what at the time was an NCAA all-division record for consecutive losses. Thankfully, Prairie View A&M in Texas came along later and lost 88 in a row, so we’re off the hook on that one. Even with that, though, Mac’s football program resembled the little kid who was regularly and severely beaten for his lunch money.
Things became bad enough that a few years ago, the Macalester community seriously debated whether to keep the football program. For years, Mac had played in the Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The MIAC featured perennial national powers St. Thomas University and St. John’s University, both of whom have won national title on the Division III level. Being Division III means no schools can offer scholarships, but the reputation of some of the schools meant that the better athletes usually went elsewhere while the better students generally came to Macalester. During my time at Mac, it wasn’t unusual for the Scots to give up 8-10 touchdowns while (maybe) scoring one or two themselves. The question wasn’t if the Scots would win or lose, but what the margin of defeat would be…and it was more often than not considerable.
After much back and forth within the Mac community, the administration made the decision to keep football…with some changes. The biggest change was the decision to leave the MIAC and play an independent schedule. The thinking was that the Scots could play a schedule in which they could at least be competitive. That seemed to do the trick; the independent schedule and the more frequent victories restored enthusiasm and excitement in the program. Last year, the Scots came to Portland to play Lewis & Clark College. After spotting the Scots a 10-0 lead in the first quarter, Lewis & Clark scored six unanswered touchdowns and won 41-10. It was a defeat, but it didn’t have the air of inevitability that a football game during my time at Mac did. The Scots were beaten by a better team, but they were competitive. Even more gratifying was the large contingent of parents and alumni that made the trip from Minnesota and the Portland alumni who came to the game. During my time at Mac, no one cared enough to travel with the team. Now there’s a strong commitment to involve parents and the broader Macalester community. Success has become the expectation instead of a vague, undefined, impossible to reach hope.
This season, the Scots joined the Midwest Conference. It’s not nearly as competitive as the MIAC, but it did offer the challenge of chasing a championship…which is exactly what they did. For the first time since my father was a fourth-grader (1947), Macalester won a conference championship. The Scots finished at 9-1, losing only to former traditional MIAC rival Hamline University in the season’s second week.
(If you’ll indulge me, I’ll offer a story: Hamline University is located in St. Paul, MN, less than two miles up Snelling Avenue from the Macalester campus. During my time at Mac, the Scots’ football team never came close to beating Hamline. One year, I went to an away game versus Hamline. The Scots lost by a wide margin, though I’ve long since forgotten the final score. I played checkers with friends in Mac’s end zone during the second half because we were confident they wouldn’t score. They didn’t.)
As a reward for going 9-1 and winning the conference championship, the Scots have been invited to a party they’ve never been to before: They’re one of 32 schools invited to the The NCAA Division III playoffs. That invitation comes with a daunting challenge, though: they’ll be traveling to Whitewater, WI, where on Saturday they’ll meet the undefeated defending national champion and #1-ranked team in Division III- the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Given Macalester’s football pedigree and history, I’d be lying were I not to admit to being possessed of decidedly mixed emotions. I’m ecstatic about the program’s success for setting a school record for victories and for making the Division III playoffs. I’m also very realistic (and terrified) about the mountain they have to climb in UW-Whitewater. Over the past two seasons, the Warhawks are 25-0 and this season they’ve won they’re 10 games by an average margin of 41-9. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t be betting money on the Scots…but that’s why the play the game, right??
Whatever happens Saturday afternoon, it won’t take away from the fact that Macalester’s football program is no longer a guaranteed “W” for their opponent. The Scots have come a long ways from the debate about whether Macalester should even keep football. Given the not always so very stellar history of football at Mac, I suspect this season feels like vindication for the coaching staff and the 73 student-athletes on the team…as well it should. They should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. I hope it will set the stage for bigger and better things to come.
Macalester has never been a “football factory,” and athletics, while always considered part of the school’s educational mission, have never been emphasized. In my day, even as a soccer player, I knew the Mac community viewed athletes as somehow unworthy of a school with such a stellar academic reputation. Thankfully, that attitude has evolved. Athletics are respected and supported. It’s good to see that my alma mater seems have become an example of the role sports should play on a college campus.
I’ve always been proud of my alma mater; now I’m just a little bit prouder to be a Macalester alum…and that feels pretty good.
