A Reaction to "Dear Alma Mater: I'm Sorry"

Seal of Union College in Schenectady, New York, United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I opened up the e-paper today, my heart skipped a beat. Union hockey featured on Puck Daddy? In Sports Illustrated? A New York Times post penned by editors of the Concordiensis? A lengthy piece in the print version of the Wall Street Journal? This must be the land where milk and honey meet ice and sticks. Union's good vibes have been resonating around the internet lately, and for good reason. With cynical lenses or not, it has been hard to diffuse the glare of a tremendous story. Little Union of just over 2,000 students and no athletic scholarships taking on the Goliaths of the hockey world...and winning. But they've done more than just win; they've given credence to a belief that hard work and years of patience coupled can pay off. Two headliners have grabbed the college hockey world's commendation. Jeremy Welsh, he of 27 goals and an imposing frame is a legitimate NHL prospect and a supremely poised, humbled player. Troy Grosenick, "The Man With the Golden GAA," is sincere, hardworking...and very good at hockey. (But this isn't the time or place to focus on the media, or the fact that it has hardly been just Welsh and Grosenick carrying this squad). It is hard to avoid the undertow of the Union wave. 

When I opened the final link on my docket, an article in the Wall Street Journal written by Union graduate Matthew Futterman, I was enthused. Until the third paragraph. And things unraveled from there.

Mr. Futterman spins a yarn detailing his self-described campaign to "kill Union's Division I hockey program before it started." There is nothing fundamentally wrong about Mr. Futterman's self-described campaign "to kill Union's Division I hockey program before it started...21 years ago." Every student has the right to his predilections and to the equally essential license to make his voice heard. This element cuts to the core of Union's foundation as a liberal arts institution. It is an irrevocable right enjoyed by citizens of a "free world." Mr. Futterman's reasonings are his own, and rightfully his. They are, too, in my opinion, deeply misguided, bitter, and an unfortunate work of self-aggrandizement that has little to do with Union's appearance in the Frozen Four. 

To paraphrase Union graduate Phil Alden Robinson's 1989 film Field of Dreams, I often have to reassure myself: "is this heaven? No, it's Schenectady." I unabashedly love my future alma mater, but I don't fancy myself an apologist. There are issues, naturally, that are at the center of debate amongst Union's community. But this is no different than any other college or university, especially the ones Mr. Futterman alludes to in his article. The 'big three' he refers to--Harvard, Yale, Princeton--share similar discord. All colleges do; it is a part of the essential nature of higher education. Conflict, whether between the student body and administration, or perhaps the college and surrounding neighborhoods, is inevitable. 

But Mr. Futterman insists on belittling Union to the point of nausea. He begins with an introduction of the pompously worded "slightly less-than-illustrious history of this small, liberal arts college." To which I will point Mr. Futterman in the direction of Nobel Prize winners, Presidents of the United States, Secretaries of State, inventors, authors, and so forth. It's one thing to deride Union--again, completely within Mr. Futterman's rights--but to so egregiously mislabel a cherished, historic, and venerated institution on a national level smacks of bitterness. Chester Arthur, by the way, certainly doesn't have the cache of other presidents, but does William Howard Taft, a Yale graduate? 

Arthur, a one-term president like Taft, did his job without much fanfare, and championed the Pendleton Civil Service Act, a piece of legislation that is a cornerstone of the current American model. Also like Taft, previous party associations prevented him from taking a second term. Wrote an historian: "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe."

But this is not a political or historical blog, nor should it be.

The troubling part of Mr. Futterman's article is that it reads dangerously as a misinformed personal attack on the school. Clearly, as the author is willing to point out, he "can admit to some embarrassing personal motivations" in his attacks on the college. He writes:

As a member of the tennis team (0-8 in singles my senior year), I didn't want hockey to hog the athletic department's budget. Also, I had my eye on some academic awards and figured this cause would burnish my (suspect) reputation as a serious thinker. Besides, there were attractive, intellectually inclined females to impress, too—the kinds who quoted Gertrude Stein and rolled their own cigarettes.

Mr. Futterman is, in essence, waging a war that ended 21 years ago. His disgust with the administration and Roger Hull's refusal to accept his advice to prevent the hockey team from going Division I drove his vitriol two decades ago. Now, as Union hockey takes center stage nationally (there have been over 100 articles written in the past two days on the team), it certainly appears that Mr. Futterman cannot bear the thought of letting his alma mater get away scott free. Which again, is perfectly within his rights. He can hold grudges--we all can. It's completely within his right.

But let me tell you a story. I have a family member who graduated from Union in the mid 1970s. He beams when anyone refers to the college; there is no college, in his opinion, that is better than this. (I happen to agree). But in the late 1990s, the college committed an error that drove him to the brink of disowning the school he loves. Grudges are funny things; they can be all-consuming and wildly self-destructive. He was ready to forget the place that he loved. But the college reached out to him, and, a decade later, make a concerted effort to rectify the mistake that had disillusioned him in the first place. This is the stuff that makes Union what it is. It's at once able to sustain a rich history (despite what Mr. Futterman says) and maintain the personal connection native to a small institution. I'd advise Mr. Futterman to call the college, or even come back for a visit. Any "mistakes" that were made in the past can be rectified.

But he seems hell-bent on promoting his own, skewed agenda. Particularly odious is his misguided classification of the college:

Known as the "mother of fraternities," Union birthed undergraduate Greek life and produced Chester A. Arthur, the forgettable 21st president. The college scenes in "The Way We Were" were filmed there and the campus features one the world's only 16-sided symmetrical buildings. Not exactly marketing gold for a private college that runs about $54,000 a year.

There is no mention of the virtues and rich history of Union. If Mr. Futterman chooses not to acknowledge these, again, it is within his right. But to publish his personal vendetta against the school in a widely read publication is not only wrong, it is cowardly and damaging. When someone unfamiliar with the school picks up this issue of the Wall Street Journal, they are liable to write off Union as a mere "safety school," one that never rubbed elbows with the "elite colleges" of the United States. These are, simply, pernicious inaccuracies. Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal's word is often as good as gold. Why would a non-informed reader question this?

Mr. Futterman claims to apologize for being "wrong" about the hockey program, but he also insists that the program had proven him right, up until last year. There are legions of fans, former players and students who can attest to the value of a program that, even in its worst days, provided a valuable asset for the college. As much as Mr. Futterman may not agree, college sports are not all about winning. They are about camraderie, scholarship, and a common bond forged throughout campus.

Mr. Futterman is using his bully pulpit as a sports writer to promulgate an untrue characterization of the college--all seemingly to rekindle the flames of a war he waged 21 years ago as a college senior. He complains about the administration's refusal to listen to him. But his own article implies the notion that he was a self-righteous college senior who could not stand to be rejected by the administration. It is unfortunate, for Union, the feel-good story of the college hockey world, and Mr. Futterman, that this article was published.

But most of all, it is unfortunate for the loyal and deserving alumni of Union College that they can be classified on a national scale as somehow inferior simply because one man decided to relive a personal vendetta in what should be an objective, well-informed publication.

And oh yeah, "Jungle Love" is an awesome song.