Dear Friends of Williams Track and Field,

We wrote to you previously to enlist your support for Coach Ralph White. The College informed him in January that they were not intending to renew his contract. As we understand the situation, since he is in the last year of his second three year contract, his Williams employment will end June 30, 2007, unless there is a change of course. He is awaiting the outcome of his second appeal to the Committee on Appointments and Promotion (CAP).

Since then, there has been considerable activity concerning this issue. A great many of you alumni/ae, parents, and current team members have responded with letters to Morty, Dean Wagner and the faculty members of CAP. Morty and Dean Wagner have responded with a letter to those who wrote, in a general letter to Friends of Williams Track and Field. A number of people have taken this issue to EPHblog and Let’sRun to get conversation going, where some very legitimate points of discussion (and perhaps a few irrelevant points) have been presented. The Record has published an article and a letter. A separate group of Track and Field alums have initiated a petition. Some people have been speculating wildly in conversation, and some have been engaging in conscientious deliberation, feeling the sadness on both sides of the issue. We understand there are also some good conversations going on within the College community. We hope so.

On this site, we are attempting to present all the information on all sides of the issue, at least that information to which we have access. All of the above information and links of which we are aware are available on this page. We present it here so the most comprehensive, and hopefully objective, consideration can be made in an extremely difficult issue which affects the wellbeing not only of Coach White, but of the team, and many other members of the Williams community.

The issue of the petition, however, does need to be clarified. We founding members of FWTF, both parents and alumni alike, were adamant that we would advocate constructively on issues of interest in support of the Track & Field Team. We specifically stated strongly, and have reiterated, that we had no role, pro or con, in the donor relationship between Williams College and parents, students, and alumni. Our fundraising interest to date, and in perpetuity, has been to raise just enough money to pay for activities, such as meet-and-greet events at track meets, paying tiny overhead for the website, and most significantly, honoring the seniors at the last home meet with a small trophy for their hard work and pursuit of goals. We did explore briefly, as will be noted elsewhere, whether we could sponsor the sale of items (tee-shirts, decals, mugs, etc) to support the spring training trip, without violating any College or NCAA rules, and found we could not easily do so, and thus readily abandoned the plan.

We have not, and never will have, an interest in diverting donations, earmarking funds, competing with the College, or influencing your gift decisions, in any way, up or down or sideways. Thus it is important for you to understand that the appeal which came to you recently to participate in a donor petition did not come from Friends of Williams Track and Field, but from other Track and Field alumni who feel very strongly about the Coach White decision. Their information is presented here along with all the other information, without recommendation one way or the other, simply because we are attempting to provide the most complete information we have available from all perspectives.

Our goal with this site is to put the information we have on the table. We do not have access to all the information which the administration is presenting for faculty consideration. We provide you with the Record story, which substantially provides the basis for the decision, as best we know it. We believe, if that is the case against Coach White, then there are considerable distortions, misrepresentations, and contextual errors, and we offer alternative data for the same issues. We suspect that the real issue is more complicated, and may be tied directly to our successful appeal for renovation of the track last year, as well as the administration concern that the creation of any “Friends of …” group is a threat and an unwelcome intrusion into the business and decision process of the College.

We apologize for any misunderstanding within the College of our advocacy efforts, in which we are seeking an open discussion of issues affecting the team. The primary goal of FWTF is to encourage continuity of new team and old, and the capturing of the grand tradition across generations. We would not be involved in this discussion if we did not believe that our very existence is the basis for Coach White’s dismissal, and we believe strongly that the College is making a grave mistake in pursuit of relief from an irritant.

We hope you will take the time to read the material presented here. And we are asking you to help us, with the wisdom and passion and experience born of your love of Track & Field and the College, to help us find a solution to this problem. Hopefully that path will allow the College to see a way to keep this exceptional coach in his position here, and the common goal is a path we can all be proud of. If you can enter into conversation with your peers, with people in the College, and let us hear, respectfully and constructively, from you.

We will endeavor to share as many of your responses as possible, if you allow, but we do not have a blog format, so it will not be interactive. We do expect your input will be informative, however, and we hope to hear from you. We also hope those of you who have a relationship within the College will take the time to have a thoughtful and constructive conversation.

Thank you for taking the time to examine this issue. We look forward to hearing from you, and hearing also what you have learned in your conversations with others. You can respond to TheWilliamsWay@FriendsOfWilliamsTrackAndField.org