Sheer determination carried MIT’s football team to one recent victory. Down 27-3 at halftime in a rain-soaked game against Western New England College, MIT opened the second half with a touchdown, and built momentum from there. When the game ended, the Engineers had outplayed the Western New England Golden Bears, scoring 28 unanswered points and winning with a final score of 31-27.

“The players never gave up and they willed themselves to win. That kind of perseverance, that kind of determination is what I think makes MIT people a cut above,” says Daniel Martin, the assistant department head for facilities and operations in the MIT Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER). “It’s that perseverance that our alumni tell us they take to the boardroom or to their research.”

MIT students learn the importance of perseverance and determination — and a host of skills that include time management, communication, and teamwork — from playing sports. The laboratory where they learn these skills is comprised of 30 acres of athletic fields in the heart of MIT’s campus. The Institute’s fields host everyone from varsity players to individuals playing pick-up games. It was on these fields that the Engineers pulled out their dramatic victory over Western New England. And it is on these fields every day that student athletes practice, play, or take exercise breaks between classes. MIT’s football, soccer, lacrosse, and other athletic fields are key to achieving DAPER’s mission to instill lifelong habits of fitness in all Institute students. But that mission requires athletic fields that meet the same standard of excellence as any other Institute facility.

Lessons on the fields

“Athletics teaches you to work with others to achieve common goals. It teaches you to face adversity,” says Martin. “Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It’s about winning with respect. And it’s about losing, but coming back the next day to continue to strive to improve yourself.”

Students bring these lessons with them into the classrooms and labs, where their skills are paired with the most technologically up-to-date equipment to further the quest to solve the world’s most pressing problems. These qualities are essential to education and research at the Institute.

Today, MIT has too few playing fields for the current number of student athletes, and the quality of most of those fields is below those of the Institute’s competitors. MIT’s varsity teams, clubs, intramurals, and recreating students all vie for time on the only artificial turf field — also the only field on campus with lights. For example, on late fall afternoons, when darkness comes early, the football team and the women’s field hockey team go head-to-head for practice time on that field. The Institute’s grass fields are also in constant demand, and thus are quickly over-used and worn down, with no time for re-seeding and rest. And in colder months, the frozen ground of the grass fields creates an added hazard for players.

“When you lose practice time, and you lose quality experience time, it’s very hard to keep up,” says football coach Dwight Smith. And when there are not enough illuminated artificial turf fields on which teams can practice, no one at MIT benefits.

Growing demand

The Institute’s goal today is to be a leader inside — and outside — the classroom. For many years, the MIT fields met the needs of the Institute’s student athletes. But a member of MIT’s first football team in 1978, returning to campus today, would see the very same field and the very same bleachers.

So much else has changed at MIT in the meantime. The number of varsity programs has more than doubled since 1970, from 19 to 41; MIT’s student body is now split nearly evenly between men and women, which means women’s teams now compete for field time as well; and freshmen arrive on campus with more experience and interest in athletics, recreation, and extracurricular activities than ever before. They also expect the same quality equipment and support for athletics that MIT offers for academics.

Competing schools have updated their athletic facilities. Lighted artificial turf fields are the standard at most colleges and universities now, as they are at some of the high schools from which MIT freshmen arrive. Artificial turf fields provide safer and better playing surfaces for students, and have lower long-term costs. The artificial fields also:

• save water;
• are less polluting because they do not require fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides;
• require less maintenance; and
• increase play time.

In short, MIT lags when it comes to offering the highest quality space and equipment for its teams.

“MIT is the best at everything — math, science, and engineering. Athletically, we also want to provide the best environment possible, the best fields, and the best equipment. If we’re going to offer sports, and we should, we must have facilities that make MIT proud,” says Walter Alessi, men’s lacrosse and soccer coach.

Without enough fields to practice on, MIT students rely more and more on their determination to remain competitive. But the students for whom athletics is an important piece of their MIT education deserve the same level of support in all aspects of Institute life.

“At MIT, the academics come first,” says Cheryl Silva, women’s lacrosse and field hockey coach. “But student athletes practice during what may be the only two free hours a day that they have. This is really important to them. They work very hard. They want to be just as excellent in athletics as they are in academics. They want the challenge.”

An MIT student should not be prevented from reaching his or her potential as a chemist, physicist, or engineer because of inadequate facilities or equipment. Likewise, a lack of practice time on a state-of-the-art field at MIT should not hold the chemist, physicist, or engineer back from reaching his or her fullest potential as an athlete.