This article is featured within the 2023 Commencement & Reunions particular subject.

On July 9, 2020, Dartmouth College introduced that they might discontinue five Division I varsity sports in an effort to stop a projected $150 million monetary deficit as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. After these groups — males’s and girls’s swimming and diving, males’s and girls’s golf and males’s light-weight rowing — had been minimize, 110 student-athletes misplaced their collegiate athletic standing and 15 workers members misplaced their jobs. The Hanover Country Club was additionally completely shut down throughout this time interval.

Five months later, in January 2021, all five sports were reinstated after the ladies’s swimming and diving and girls’s golf groups employed a lawyer to research attainable Title IX violations. At the specter of litigation for not complying with Title IX, the College entered a settlement settlement, promising to reinstate the ladies’s groups that had been minimize. Although the settlement settlement didn’t require it, the College additionally reinstated the lads’s groups. Even although this occurred practically three years in the past, the workforce cuts and reinstatements nonetheless impression the 5 groups immediately, in accordance with Charles Petrie ’22.

Men’s Golf

When the preliminary information broke that the groups had been disbanded, Men’s golf co-captain Petrie first acquired a textual content through the pandemic in summer time 2020 that urged him and different student-athletes to get on a Zoom name. 

“I remember it really vividly,” Petrie stated. “I was out practicing, and then we got these automated texts, and I think the first word was like ‘urgent,’ at which point I knew something pretty significant was happening.”

The information was not such a shock to males’s golf co-captain Mark Turner ’22, as he had heard rumors of groups getting minimize. Turner had beforehand heard from different groups at Dartmouth and past that they had been involved that their groups could also be minimize, which fearful him. 

On the brilliant facet, Petrie and Turner stated they got here to understand enjoying golf at Dartmouth extra so after the reinstatement.

“I had more of an appreciation to be able to just play golf at Dartmouth — more so than always worrying about scores, shooting good numbers,” Turner stated.

“I feel like I got a lot closer with my teammates and with our coach,” Petrie added. “Our coach went through so much as well.”

Women’s Golf

The girls’s golf head coach Alex Kirk thought it was greatest to not look again after the reinstatement. “You got to pick up the pieces and move forward,” stated Kirk. “You learn from the situation but you can’t live in fear.”

The males’s and girls’s golf groups saved the identical coach, which helped the workforce transfer one; nonetheless, the loss of the Hanover Country Club had a big impression on each groups.

“That was our course we could play on campus,” Petrie stated. “We now have to drive 20 minutes to a course to play. We are very lucky to be able to play there, but it’s not the same as having a course on campus.” 

Men’s golf head coach Rick Parker commented on the progress of the workforce submit reinstatement, noting that “everyone was so rusty” as a result of lack of golf tournaments for a year.

“It’s obvious you don’t pick up where you left off,” Parker stated. “I think that’s the part that people didn’t understand. Everybody was so rusty, because no one had played in any tournaments.”

But Parker stated he has excessive hopes for his workforce sooner or later. 

“I’m looking forward to us getting back to where we were before we were cut, and we were close this year,” Parker stated. “I know we’re building our way up, and we had a really good finish this year.”

The girls’s golf workforce misplaced a few gamers who transferred to completely different colleges due to the preliminary minimize of the workforce, in accordance with head coach Alex Kirk. Kirk stated he helped these switch athletes to make sure that they nonetheless performed golf, and he nonetheless retains in contact with them.

“Most of my players stay in touch with me,” Kirk stated. “You’re doing something right when the kids still want to keep in touch with you. I’m pretty proud of the program we put together, and we’re a smart team.”

Men’s Lightweight Rowing

Prior to the lads’s light-weight rowing’s minimize in 2020, present head coach Trevor Michelson served because the assistant coach. Afterwards, he discovered a job that allowed him to proceed his ardour for the game as an assistant to girls’s rowing head coach Nancy LaRocque.

Once the light-weight rowing workforce was reinstated, Michelson regained the place of head coach for the lads’s light-weight rowing workforce. Michelson spoke on what this place means to him.

“I’ve known most of these guys since they were 17 — I’ve seen them grow as people and work through the adversity of getting the team cut,” Michelson stated. “The privilege of my life has been being entrusted to lead this group of guys, and for them to just trust me through the process is really special.”

The males’s light-weight rowing workforce acquired assist from the alumni community through the preliminary disbandment of the workforce, with males’s light-weight rowing co-captain Chris Stitch ’23 describing this workforce as “really special..”

“There was a big outpouring of alumni support and big email chains with all former lightweight rowers from Dartmouth,” Stich stated. “A lot of them really wanted to get involved and they formed … almost a committee.”

Despite the light-weight rowing workforce being dismantled, the workforce truly turned nearer throughout this time.

“I knew I had great friends that really cared about me, and I had a great network still there,” Stich stated. “I think we bonded in just knowing how … important the team was. And I don’t think we ever lost our spirit and camaraderie.”

Even although the administration minimize the rowing season brief in 2020, the light-weight rowing workforce didn’t let this carry down their spirits, in accordance with Stitch. Together, they efficiently certified for the World Rowing Championships, which is “pretty rare” to do with a workforce of athletes who all attend the identical faculty, Stitch stated. 

Swim and Dive 

The girls’s swim and dive workforce didn’t solely obtain assist from the alumni community, but additionally from Olympians. It was additionally not the primary time the workforce had been minimize.

“There were several swimmers prominent in the swim community that publicly said this is wrong,” Christina Cianciolo ’23 stated. “Not only the Olympians, but a lot of my swim friends back home and a lot of swimmers always reposted our stories, commented a lot on different articles, things like that. So there was a lot of support from a lot of different people.”

On the lads’s swim and dive workforce, athletes had been discussing transferring colleges, in accordance with Tim Cushman ’23.

“People talked about [transferring] and looked into it, but when the team got brought back, the few individuals who were thinking about it decided not to,” Cushman stated.

Unlike the golf groups, the swimming and diving workforce had a whole teaching workers turnover.

“We had a full coaching change, so all of our coaches left, and we got two new assistant coaches and a new head coach,” Cushman stated. Cushman added that he believes the members of the workforce carry way more to Dartmouth than their athleticism. 

“The individuals on the team bring a different perspective to Dartmouth and bring just a different lens to look through things.”

While the workforce cuts didn’t give Cianciolo the most effective impression of the College, she additionally expressed the teachings she discovered from the minimize, and later the reinstatement. 

“It definitely created a distasteful image of the College in terms of who and what they prioritized, especially over the pandemic,” Cianciolo stated. “It was an extremely tough time, especially because of the fact that everyone was scattered … But I think, overall, it taught me a lot about perseverance and patience.”