There is a significant portion of the student population at Amherst that actively detracts from the larger student experience.

And it is not because they are stupid.

Much has been said about the academic merit of student athletes. A collection of professors made waves a few years ago by expressing their support for the abolition of athletic admissions. The Amherst administration and Athletics department rejected those demands and continued athletic recruitment. But amongst the student body itself, there is a perception that student athletes tend to be less intelligent than non-athletes, who earned their admission through sheer academic merit.

Now seems an appropriate time to confess that I am a student athlete.

The stereotype that athletes are stupid has negatively impacted my mental health. When I entered college, I believed I was intelligent, capable, and that I deserved to be here. I succeeded academically in high school. I scored well on the SAT. I am passionate about learning. I care deeply about using these four years to make myself better in every way possible. But over the course of my time here, I have begun to internalize the belief that I do not deserve to be here.

The most difficult part of refuting my internalized inferiority is that I do agree with the idea that many athletes are less academically driven. Any person who has taken an introductory humanities course can sympathize with the feeling of despair at walking into a lecture and seeing a group of athletes huddled in the back rows, spending the whole class watching film. But many student athletes are incredibly intelligent, and even more possess the discipline, rigor, and drive needed to succeed academically. In a survey taken several years ago, it was found that the GPAs of athletes and non-athletes hardly differed. While grade inflation and slack-off classes admittedly complicate this statistic, it still demonstrates that insufficient academic merit cannot entirely explain the student body’s disdain toward athletes. That animus cannot come from nowhere, and cannot be dismissed as merely intellectual scorn.

And though I have already written several hundred words on it, I am not here to argue whether or not athletes are as academically proficient as non-athletes. I believe some of them are very smart and more of them are not. I believe that I would not have been accepted by Amherst without the boost from my athletic recruitment. But I contend the issue with athletic admissions that needs to be addressed is not that athletes are stupid. It is that many of them are simply not good people.

The things I have heard—from teammates, at mixers, or just in passing around campus—would make your jaw drop. Blatant racism, political vitriol, the justification of sexual assault. I am not absolving myself of responsibility. I smile uncomfortably, laugh along, wince internally. I am part of the problem. The dominant culture among athletes not only allows, but supports these behaviors. I would not be the first to draw a comparison between teams and fraternities, upholding pacts of silence and complicity. Athletes that have been barred from entering campus due to their sexual misconduct still litter their teammates’ instagrams.

Further, athletes are not unaware that their conduct or “dark humor” would be rejected by a majority of the school. Comments are made quietly, when we are sure there are no non-athletes around. We are the victims, the silent majority, surrounded by the oppressively woke mob of nerds. We are the normal people among the freaks. While athletes do generally trend more conservative politically, the broader issue is the culture of political apathy and disengagement. There is very little political interest or discussion.

The obsession with cliques, the implicit sense of superiority, and the moral compromises ever-present in athletic culture all sabotage the ideals of a liberal arts education, such as intellectual curiosity and good-faith debate. They detract from the experience of athletes and non-athletes alike. Just because someone is a bad student does not make them a bad person. The problem is that many athletes are bad.

I do not have a perfect solution. In 2026, the school received $1.2 million in athletic donations. The Amherst administration will simply never scrap or overhaul our Athletics department as others have argued for in the past. The only solution I can propose is placing a stronger emphasis on the importance of college essays and extracurricular activities during the recruiting process. The current system involves an academic “pre-read” wherein the admissions department reviews the grades and test scores of athletic recruits prior to their application. They then inform the athlete their odds of admittance, or whether they should apply at all. Each team has a varying number of recruiting slots for athletes of differing academic merit. This system ensures that athletic teams will collectively have solid GPAs, but does absolutely nothing to ensure each athlete’s commitment to the values and culture of this school. As we can infer from the infamous “the poors” essay of Voices 2024, even ridiculously out-of-touch athletes with passable academics are making the cut. This cannot continue.

In ending legacy admissions, Amherst proved itself to be capable of bringing about positive change and influencing other colleges to do the same. The Amherst administration and Athletics department must lead the charge in changing our method of athletic recruitment to prioritize finding good people. ■

— Anonymous