In this orientation week issue, we want to familiarize new students with the players and teams that show potential to be great next season. From ShaSha Brown ’13 and the men’s basketball team to Laura Kurash ’13 and Women’s soccer, Wesleyan sports have never had such a great crop of young talented players and exciting teams. So get ready for the year and prepare to cheer Wes on as we begin our 2010- 11 campaign for NESCAC glory.
After reading the articles in this section, you might have some questions. What is the NESCAC? What is the Little Three? Why am I sitting in my dorm room alone reading the sports section right now? If you seek the answer to any or all of these questions, fear not, young freshman, for you have come to the right place. Read fur- ther and you should have enough of a working knowledge of sports at Wesleyan to impress all your new friends at DKE, and hopefully gain the courage to read the sports section in public with pride.
NESCAC stands for the New England Small College Athletic Conference, and it contains 11 schools across 5 states in the North East. The NESCAC historically has been one of the most competi- tive Division III conferences, and has produced Division III national champions in many sports during its history.
The 11 colleges compete in 27 varsity sports, holding end of the season Conference Championships in many sports, but notably exclud- ing football, which also holds the distinction of not playing any games out of conference. Consistently, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, and Trinity field competitive teams in most of the sports, and stand in Wesleyan’s way of attaining the NESCAC glory we have all been waiting for.
Within the NESCAC is the “Little Three”, made up of Wesleyan and its two despised rivals, Amherst and Williams. The league picked the name to contrast the “Big Three” of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. If this was meant as some sort of ploy to increase name recognition, I think we all know how that turned out. However, lame as the etymology of the term might be, it has spawned a rivalry that runs so deep it conjures up ideas of Red Sox Yankees, Giants Dodgers, and Lohan Rehab.
Each year the three schools compete for the Little Three Title in every sport, and at the end of the year the school with the most titles is unofficially crowned Little Three Champion. Within recent memory, this honor has not been bestowed on Wesleyan, but if you have read any of our preview articles you know that this is soon to change. So, now armed with this deep sports knowl- edge, go forth into the community and impress your new friends with acronyms and stats, and remember, GoWes!
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