Conference Call:

Photo-illustration by Michael Wilson

Beginning in the 2007 season, Moravian will join the Centennial Conference as an associate member in football. Other members of this conference are Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, Gettysburg, McDaniel, Muhlenberg, and Ursinus Colleges and Johns Hopkins University.

President Rokke, announcing the change, said: “We have accepted this invitation to join a very prestigious and distinguished conference for several reasons:

• “First, it will enable us to renew a number of long-standing football rivalries. Many of our alumni remember Greyhound football schedules that were filled with these institutions.

• “Second, it demonstrates our strong interest in engaging the academically strong, distinctive members of the Centennial Conference in such areas as academic affairs, student affairs, and enrollment.”

The by-laws of our current athletic conference, the Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Athletic Corporation (MAC), do not permit members to play any sport in another conference, so Moravian will have the option of playing its other 19 varsity sports in the MAC through the 2007-08 academic year.

“In the interim,” says the Pres, “I am confident that we will find an appropriate affiliation for those sports among schools that share Moravian’s institutional quality.”

Can’t you just hear the players, running down the field quoting Plato and Spinoza? Or Comenius! “

A tree . . . needs to be copiously refreshed by wind, rain, and frost; otherwise it easily falls into bad condition and becomes barren,” he wrote in Didactica Magna (1628-32).

“In the same way, the human body needs movement, excitement, and exercise, and in daily life these must be supplied, either artificially or naturally.”

He also wrote: “Much can be learned in play that will afterward be of use when the circumstances demand it.”