Wabash bestowed an overdue honor on legendary coach Gail Pebworth, who retired in 2001 and still weilds a tremendous impact on Wabash swimming & diving and its alumni.

It’s no secret to those who know me how much respect I carry for a woman I still call Coach. And, yes, I’ll admit to doing a little logrolling among the swim alums to lobby the National Association of Wabash Men for her.

But sitting in the Chapel on Saturday, I couldn’t have been more pleased that we could contribute this small gratitude to someone who demonstrated such positivity, exacted such great expectation, and taught us the true meaning of “Wabash Always Fights.”

The honor brought out classmates Tony Costantino, Dave Riggs, Steve Turk, and myself–along with a bevy of other swim alums–who participated in the Annual Alumni/Intersquad meet before the Homecoming Chapel.

I have pasted the citation below, which is apt and remarkable. What’s not said is how much a recruiting powerhouse she was (and is), and not just to swimmers and divers. I was reminded how an alum would proudly report to Coach Pebworth of the birth of his son. After the conversation, she would jot down his name, his son’s name, and add it to the appropriate folder, i.e. “Class of 2014″ in her recruiting drawer.

You’ll notice at the end that she has chosen to affiliate herself with the Class of 1991.

To echo Coach’s familiar refrain, “Why not?”

Citation read by NAWM President Mark Dewart ’74:

Gail Moll Pebworth, graduate of Indiana University and near life-long resident of Crawfordsville, it seems fitting on this Homecoming that we finally welcome you into the ranks of alumni of this great College.

After all, you were the first woman to serve as a head coach at Wabash and the first woman inducted in the Wabash Athletics Hall of Fame. In 1999, you were named one of Indiana’s “Trailblazing Women,” and we’re grateful that you chose to blaze your trail here at Wabash.

You coached Wabash swimmers and divers for 18 years and no coach in Wabash athletics history was as successful as you were. Your teams won 131 of 151 dual meets over 18 years and had a combined record of 775-112 against all competition. Your Little Giants posted eight undefeated seasons, scored five top-20 finishes at the NCAA Championships, won 13 Liberal Arts Invitational titles, and captured six conference championships. You were tabbed as Coach of the Year at Wabash — in good company, we might add — a record seven times, and twice you were named Indiana’s Swimming Coach of the Year.

What is particularly remarkable about your record as our swimming and diving coach is that you placed equal emphasis on academic excellence. While you coached 48 All-Americans, you also coached 23 All-Academic standouts, four NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Winners, two of your men were Rhodes Scholarship finalists, and your teams were on the All-Academic list for 23 straight semesters.

But those records are merely numbers to hang on banners or tuck away in trophy cases. Your true meaning to Wabash lies in the way you mentored and inspired hundreds of men who competed under your leadership. You taught them to win or lose with dignity and class. You treated novice, even first-time swimmers with the same respect as your elite All-Americans. You modeled for your men a constant pursuit of excellence and you demanded nothing less than each man’s best effort.

While some in collegiate athletics might dub your methods as “old school,” we at Wabash are proud that you did not tolerate swearing, jeering, or boastful behavior on your deck. So classy were you as a coach, that you routinely celebrated the successes of our opponents, including DePauw, with as much excitement as you did your own swimmers and divers. For you have long believed in the potential greatness of good people — at Wabash and beyond.

You have given of yourself to improve the lives of your swimmers and divers, your fellow members of the League of Women Voters, and all of those served by the many boards and agencies you have led. Our mission at Wabash calls our students to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely. In you, Gail Moll Pebworth, we have a living example of how that mission is manifest and all the good that can come from a single person in pursuit of excellence.

Therefore, it is my honor on behalf of the National Association of Wabash Men, to name you an honorary alumna in the Class of 1991. Gail Moll Pebworth — Some Little Giant!

More than a decade ago when Wabash embarked on its last big Capital Campaign, the College endeavored to assign each student his own phone number that he could program to any phone jack on campus. Credit the initiative to a certain alumnus who used to head a certain Fortune 10 telecommunications company.

Well, times certainly change.

Looks like that constantly ringing and perpetually unanswered hall phone may soon go the way of the dodo. Here’s the story from the Indianapolis Star.

7 colleges in Indiana hanging up dorm phones

By Dan McFeely
Posted: August 19, 2010

Tired of watching dust gather on dorm phones, several Indiana colleges are pulling the plug on landlines, making their classes of 2014 the first in the state to be totally cellular.

Without landlines, some colleges will save tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and hook-up fees paid to phone companies. Butler University, for example, could save up to $60,000 a year; Indiana State about $35,000.
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But the reason for the change is not money: It’s the reality of a new high-tech generation.

“Almost none of our students were using the phones and lines we provided,” said Jim Amidon, spokesman for Wabash College, which looks to save $20,000 a year. “Some students can choose to have phone lines activated this year, but we suspect very few will do so.”

And in those rare cases where a student wants a landline, the student will have to live in an older dorm — new and remodeled halls come without telephone jacks — and will have to pay the installation fees and supply the phone.

Additionally, the need for hard-wire phone jacks for Internet connections is going away as more and more dorms are fitted with Wi-Fi capability.

Other schools that will be all-cell or are in the process of removing their landlines are Hanover, Indiana Tech, Indiana Wesleyan and the University of Indianapolis.

Not everyone is making the switch yet.

Indiana University, where 12,000 students live on campus, says about 15 percent still use their landlines, based on voice-mail activation numbers from last year. And Purdue says it will be at least two years before any drastic changes are made to its campuswide fiber-optic system, which includes phone service.

Students say they won’t miss the landlines.

“I could probably count on one hand the number of times I used (the dorm phone),” said Andrew Forrester, a senior at Wabash College. “I used it just one year, when I was a freshman. But I received more calls from telemarketers than anything else.”

Removing landlines is not exactly a national trend, although the universities of Virginia and South Dakota recently announced similar moves. Virginia officials say they could save $500,000 a year by removing the 3,850 phones in their dorms.

But some Indiana schools have been hesitant to pull the plug, despite telltale signs that the time has come.

At Trine University (formerly Tri-State) in Northern Indiana, students can still make a local call, but three years ago voicemail was eliminated, and after only two students made long-distance calls last year, that service was cut, too. And at tiny Holy Cross College, where only 260 students live on campus in South Bend, landlines are still available, even though just five students requested one last year.
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The limited use of dorm phones reflects what’s happening generally. Twenty-five percent of American homes have now gone to cell phones exclusively. In addition, industry estimates show 83 percent of today’s 17-year-olds (tomorrow’s college kids) have their own cell phones, up from 64 percent five years ago.

The University of Indianapolis is gradually phasing out its landline service, according to Kory Vitangeli, dean of students. East Hall, for example, is a new residence hall for upperclassmen that opened last fall with no landlines in the rooms, while two other dorms for older students are having their landlines cut this year. And next year, three other dorms will be taken offline.

Joan Knies, a Jasper mom whose son will be a UIndy freshman, is fine with the change. She’s used to relying on cell phones to stay connected with her kids.

“They got their cell phones when they started high school,” she said, “so we could always be in contact.”

If there was any concern, she said, it was the potential for 911 not to work as well as it does with a traditional phone in the event an emergency call is made.

UIndy spokesman Scott Hall said that was a concern for the college as well. “We are putting in multiple common-area phones in the hallways on each floor, for students to make local and 911 calls.”

Ball State marketing Professor Michael Hanley, whose campus still uses landlines, has conducted nearly a dozen student surveys since 2005 and estimates cell phone usage is nearly universal on that campus — 99.8 percent of all students have them; 9 out of 10 use smart phones with Internet technology; and a growing number are using text messaging rather than e-mails. His survey results are similar to the national rate use on other campuses.

“College students are the first to adopt new types of communication technologies,” Hanley said, but don’t look for every college to quickly respond. “It will take another five to 10 years before cell phones completely replace landlines.”

And the hits just keep on comin’… Wabash College was featured in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges issue. Here’s the article. (more)

Road Trip: Wabash College

We toured some of Indiana’s top schools and found out what it’s like to attend them.

Once, the vast majority of colleges and universities in the country were exclusively male. But while there are still many that cater exclusively to women, the number of all-male colleges has shrunk to just four. Wabash College in Crawfordsville is proud of its single-sex traditions and the educational climate it provides, says President Patrick White, who speaks with passion about the advantages. “This is a place that empowers men to engage their own ambitions, while other colleges sometimes force them to repress or hide those ambitions,” White says.

Dave Stone alerted us to Wabash’s #42 ranking on Forbes listing of America’s Best Colleges. Check it out.

Just received this from the Alumni Office. Take this survey to help them better program events and communications to best suit you. Thanks.

Dear Alumus,

We are seeking your help to better understand your preferences for Wabash communications and for off-campus alumni events.  Please take just a couple of minutes to complete this short survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9PKQVWB

Your inputs will help us serve you better.

In addition, we’re asking for your current contact information at the end of the survey.  That information will allow us to contact you with any questions concerning your responses and even more importantly, make sure our database information is up to date.

Thanks in advance,
Your Alumni and Parent Relations Team

It’s August, and time for that annual tradition of the Princeton Review’s college rankings. (story)As usual, Wabash had much to be proud of as its students ranked our alma mater in the following categories:

#2 – Best Athletic Facilities
#2 – Easiest Campus to Get Around
#3 – Everyone Plays Intramural Sports
#6 – Jock Schools
#7 – Most Accessible Professors
#11 – Best Career Services
#11 – School Runs Like Butter
#15 – Great Financial Aid
#15 – Major Frat and Sorority Scene
#18 – Professors Get High Marks
#19 – Students Pack the Stadiums

And, of course, I’m always tempted to see how the Dannies made out. Check this out…

#1 – Best College Radio Station
#3 – Major Frat and Sorority Scene
#8 – Town-Gown Relations are Strained
#10 – Party Schools
#14 – Lots of Beer
#15 – Class Discussions Encouraged
#15 – College Town Not So Great

Thanks to Dave Stone for pointing out that DePauw has cracked the top ten in the infamous Party School category.

Here are some interesting side-by-side comparisons:

Just received this update from Tim Cobb via a Facebook message:

As part of a career change, our family has relocated to northwestern Louisiana after 9 years in southwestern Michigan. I had been teaching English and Speech at Davenport University in Grand Rapids as well as coaching basketball and baseball at Heritage Christian Academy in Kalamazoo.

Once I realized I was making much more of a difference with the high school students, I applied to and was accepted into the 2010 cohort of the Louisiana Teaching Fellows in Shreveport, an alternate certification program designed to address the achievement gap by putting putting new highly qualified teachers into high needs schools.

Starting August 16th, I’ll be teaching English composition and literature at Southwood High School in south Shreveport.

We’ll be living in Plain Dealing, Louisiana, and we’d love to hear from any fellow Wallies in this part of the country.

Pictured: (l-r) The Cobb family: TJ, Linden,Tricia, Rebecca, and Tim.

Last Friday, Windy City Wabash alums enjoyed an enjoyable  outing at Wrigley Field thanks to the Wabash Club of Chicago. Derrick Lee’s ninth inning grand slam wasn’t enough to carry the Cubs over the Angels, and the home team lost 7-6.

Classmates Tom Watson and Steve Turk (pictured) intently watched all the action.

Long-delayed construction of a $6.2 million project to upgrade the football, baseball, soccer, IM, and track & field facilities is now underway in earnest.

Over the summer, Hollett Little Giant Stadium is receiving a facelift of new synthetic field turf and a new scoreboard in time for the football season in the fall.

Meanwhile, work will soon begin on construction of a dedicated baseball stadium southwest of the Allen Center with permanent seating for fans. The stadium will also have batting cages, bullpens, a press box, a concession and restroom complex, and a new scoreboard. These improvements should be complete by the beginning of the baseball season next spring.

Good o’l’ Mud Hollow will become the official home of the Wabash soccer team with a new synthetic field, permanent seating for fans, a press box, and restrooms. It will also have two additional fields for use as a practice field for the football team and for intramural sports.

Originally developed in 2008, the project was delayed as the College gradually but ultimately successfully raised funds in the current economic climate.

When complete, these upgraded facilities will go far to attract quality student-athletes (in baseball and soccer, especially) to Wabash.

Check out video of the project from Kyle Bender ’12.

On Inside Indiana Business yesterday, I heard that Wabash had landed a $50,000 from a Council of Independent Colleges and Walmart Foundation.The funding will establish a 2-year program to support the needs of first-generation college students. I had no idea that Wabash still educates so many first-generation college students, currently about 60% of the student body!

For all of my grumbling about Walmart, this is a great donation and will go far to aid our students.

You can read the full press release from the College here.