In high school, Chris Burke ’11 didn’t attract much attention from college baseball coaches, and his freshman year statistics at Bates were typical for an unballyhooed player. He played in nine games and made seven plate appearances, good for a single, a double, and a walk.

Still, the experience made him feel like a legitimate Division III player. Sort of.“I hit well in high school,” says Burke, who earned All-Catholic Central League honors as an outfielder at Austin Prep in Reading, Mass. “But you never know when you’re going to stop being one of the better players, or when you’ll get to that point when you’re in over your head.”

After a breakthrough 2009 performance at the plate, Burke is now head and shoulders above the competition.

In preseason last winter, Burke impressed rookie head coach Edwin Thompson enough that he was named the Bobcats’ starting right fielder for their opening game versus Alma (Mich.) College, which was played in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Feb. 20. Against the Scots, Burke went 1 for 3, walked twice, scored once, and drove in a run. In fact, he hit safely in 18 straight games to open the season — believed to be a Bates record.

“He has a great presence,” says the 29-year-old Thompson. “It was the way he practiced: He did all the little things right. Those qualities really translate well to baseball.”

For the season, Burke hit safely in 29 of the 33 games he played in, batting .406. He hit some long balls (two homers) and a bunch of short ones (he bunted himself on “seven or eight” times, says Thompson). His 52 hits are a Bates record, and his 33 runs batted in are the most since Andy Carman ’85 had 41 in 1984. At season’s end Burke was named All-NESCAC, baseball’s first since 2005.

He had a pair of two-hit games versus Trinity, the defending NCAA champion, and went 3 for 4 against the University of Southern Maine, which at the time was ranked No. 1 by D3Baseball.com. “You have to believe that you can hit anybody in the league,” Burke says. “I tried to be confident going in to face everybody.”

Burke, who also plays football, entered the 2009 baseball season something of a known quantity because Thompson served as the football team’s running-backs coach last fall. Although Burke is a defensive back and special-teams player, he nevertheless caught Thompson’s attention. “He has a great presence,” says the 29-year-old Thompson. “It was the way he practiced: He did all the little things right. Those qualities really translate well to baseball.”

And because baseball is a game of little things done right, the best way to get better is through repetition. “With baseball, no matter who you are, you have to put your time in to hone your craft,” says Thompson, a former Division I player at Maryland and Howard. Even before he saw his players last winter, Thompson made his coaching presence felt by arranging for his players to compete in various summer collegiate wooden-bat leagues — the much-celebrated Cape Cod League being the premier version.

Eight Bates players are now playing summer ball in these leagues; seven more are competing in local town leagues. Thompson says that playing 35 to 50 summer games “is an important part of how we’re going to get somewhere. If last summer you faced a guy from Tennessee or Tulane, whether you did bad or good you’re going to feel more comfortable playing against NESCAC teams.”

To that end, catcher Jacob Simon ’11 of Waterford, Conn., and pitcher Ryan Heide ’11 of Medfield, Mass., are playing for the D.C. Grays of the Clark Griffith League, where stars like Jonathan Papelbon and Mark Teixeira once played.

Pitcher Paul Chiampa ’11 of Bryantville, Mass., and outfielder Pat Murphy ’11 of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, are with the Marion (Ky.) Bobcats in the Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League, second baseman Luke Wamboldt ’11 of Sunderland, Mass., is with the Iowa Snappers in the Mississippi River Valley League, and Karl Alexander ’12 of Cambridge, Mass., is pitching for Stockyard in the venerable Boston Park League.

Burke and pitcher/first baseman Noah Lynd ’11 of Meriden, N.H., are with the Maryland Orioles of the Maryland Collegiate League, now in its third year. They’re living with Burke’s aunt and uncle in Olney, Md., near their games.

Burke got off to a hot start, batting .440 in his first 25 at-bats, though he will have cut short his season in mid-July for another Bates priority: academics, which take him to the University of Perth, Australia, for the fall semester. That means no Bates football for the son of former football team captain Terry Burke ’79 and Melissa McCabe Burke ’79. Instead, he’ll wrestle with biology Down Under and, in the spring, return to help Bates baseball toward its goal: a first-ever spot in the NESCAC playoffs.

For Thompson, having his players pursue summer ball is a neat way to establish a new conference standard — not many NESCAC players choose to play in collegiate summer leagues — while moving his team up the conference ladder. “This is how it will be from here on out,” he says. “Bates baseball will be doing a lot of things differently from other teams in the conference.”

By Andy Walter, Photograph By Phyllis Graber Jensen

Bates College ranked 57th out of the 310 NCAA Division III schools that scored points, as the final standings of the 2008-09 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup were released by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). It is Bates’ highest final standing in the rankings since 2006.

With 268.00 Directors’ Cup points, Bates ranks sixth among schools in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, ahead of Hamilton (240.25), Colby (204.50), Connecticut College (154.10) and Wesleyan (112.00). The NESCAC occupied the top three spots and four of the top 10, topped by Williams, which won its 11th straight Directors’ Cup.

Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup points are based upon team finishes in NCAA championships. The Bobcats scored 138.00 points in the winter season — 51 from Nordic and alpine skiing (13th place in NCAA), 45 from women’s swimming and diving (29th place), and 42 points from women’s indoor track and field (32nd place). Bates scored 130.00 more points in the spring season, with 90 points in women’s rowing (second place), 35 points in women’s outdoor track and field (38th place) and five points from men’s outdoor track and field (76th place). Because the rankings are solely based on team standings at NCAA Championships, the men’s tennis doubles title won by Bates’ Ben Stein and Amrit Rupasinghe did not impact the Directors’ Cup standings.

View a PDF of the complete 2008-09 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup Standings at this link.

Bates’ Directors’ Cup Standing Through the Years:

2008-09: 57th place
2007-08: 77th
2006-07: 76th
2005-06: 49th
2004-05: 33rd
2003-04: 48th
2002-03: 50th
2001-02: 45th
2000-01: 50th
1999-00: 35th
1998-99: T-79th
1997-98: T-49th
1996-97: 51st
1995-96: 58th

Bates College catcher Gordy Webb ’11 earned New England Small College Athletic Conference Baseball Player of the Week honors in early April, batting .611 (11-for-18) with a .632 on-base percentage and a 1.111 slugging mark while not committing an error behind the plate during the Bobcats’ 3-2 week.

Morgan Maciewicz ’10 celebrates a goal during a game against Colby. Bates lost the game but earned the sixth seed in the NESCAC Championship.

The Bates College softball team celebrates an 8-1 NESCAC East Division victory against rival Bowdoin.

“It’s a great day…to give to a Bobcat!”

That might well be the cheer of the Friends of Bates Athletics, a new initiative aimed at allowing alumni, parents, and friends of the College to — in the words of Director of Athletics Kevin McHugh — “give to what they’re passionate about.”

After only one year of existence, fundraising by the FBA has already had a measurable impact on athletics at Bates, where about 53 percent of students participate in varsity or club sports:

• The football program’s annual golf tournament, for example, raised money to purchase new scouting software and helped to defray the cost of weight- room renovations.
• Gifts to the women’s basketball program sent the team to the South Padre Island Shootout in Texas.
• Gifts to the Bates rowing team helped purchase a new boat.

Traditionally, college advancement offices nationally have been reluctant to sanction institutionalized athletic fundraising for fear that it would siphon gifts away from annual fund drives. The new thinking, however, is that athletic fundraising can both supplement annual fund giving (such as through the Bates Fund) and also get grads, parents, and friends of a college into the habit of philanthropy.

These days, almost all schools in Bates’ New England Small College Athletic Conference conduct sports-related fundraising.

“There is a great deal of passion for Bates athletics,” says Kelly Kerner, vice president for College advancement. “There are a lot of alums and parents whose connection to the College is rooted in an athletic experience. We’re providing an avenue for people to give to what they are passionate about.”

The FBA’s initial fundraising year, which ended June 30, 2008, yielded $221,228, with all 31 varsity teams and 12 club sports benefiting from FBA gifts. Football, with its greater numbers and established golf tournament, led the way by raising $42,000, but club sports such as sailing ($17,000) and women’s hockey ($6,000) also did remarkably well.

“And we’ve only scratched the surface,” McHugh says of the Friends of Bates Athletics potential.

Trustee Bruce Stangle ’70, chair of the Friends of Bates Athletics Council, played varsity golf, club hockey, and a variety of intramural sports at Bates, so he well understands the central role of sports in campus life.

“At Bates, the culture being what it is — no sororities, no fraternities — athletics are a big part of how friendships are formed and lifelong associations are created,” says Stangle. “We found a pent-up demand among alums asking, ‘How can I connect to an important part of my Bates experience?’”

In that sense, the FBA also focuses on “friendraising,” sponsoring receptions and other gatherings such as golf tournaments, a recent baseball reunion, and receptions during the College-hosted NCAA Skiing Championships in March.

“The FBA is about engaging and re-engaging with Bates people,” says McHugh. “We hope it leads to financial support, but it is equally important to bring people together around Bates athletics.”

Nate Kellogg ’09, a co-captain of both soccer and lacrosse, is one Bates student-athlete keenly aware of what team alums can do for a team. “Last year, a lacrosse alum made an incredible gift that had an immediate impact,” Kellogg recalls. “He gave enough money so every reserve player could travel to our Connecticut College game.”

So does Kellogg plan to become a Friend of Bates Athletics?

“Absolutely. No question,” he enthuses. “There’s been a lot of good leadership ahead of me and they’ve set the trend of giving back.”

A distinguishing feature of FBA fundraising is that the money is not budget relief — it’s additional funding for key initiatives, such as spring trips or new equipment. Head men’s lacrosse coach Peter Lasagna explains how he got new helmets for his team. “Aaron Sells ’01, the captain of my first Bates team, made the lead gift,” he says. “It was amazing: He called me and said, ‘I want to do this.’ A week later, 46 helmets arrived.” Total cost: $5,000-plus.

But it’s not just Bates alumni, parents, and friends who do the heavy lifting when it comes to athletics support. Across the board, varsity and club-sport athletes run their own fundraising programs, from clinics for local high school students to the rowing team’s innovative “rent-a-rower” odd-job service.

Wayne Zimmerman, director of Bates advancement services, hired the rowers to move a kit car he’s building into a garage.

The service surprised him twice. “I didn’t know the athletes did things like this to raise money,” he says, “and I didn’t expect them to do it this well. But as you would expect from rowers: They were really in sync.”

By Edgar Allen Beem

Freelance writer Edgar Allen Beem wrote about biologist Will Ambrose’s clam- and climate-related research in the Spring 2008 issue.

During her first year as a Bates runner, Isabel Alexander ’09 always sprinted clear of her teammates. Usually that’s a sign of great talent. But Alexander was doing it during warmups.

Apparently unaware of the potential for showing up her teammates, Alexander seemed to have just one speed — top.

Running ahead during warmups is “usually something that might really annoy your teammates,” says head coach Jay Hartshorn. “But she would get away with it because she’s so sweet and nice and fun and caring. People sort of said, ‘Oh, that’s just Izzy.’”

Heading into the outdoor season, Alexander is already one of the best female runners in Bates history. Her athletic résumé includes three All-America honors in three events — the indoor distance medley relay, the indoor 800-meter run, and the outdoor 400-meter hurdles — as well as two NESCAC championships, four New England Division III titles, and last year’s Bates Female Athlete of the Year award.

“She’s different from anyone I’ve ever coached,” says Hartshorn. Alexander’s laid-back persona masks incredible intensity that’s “only obvious in that she never misses a practice, and she’s the first one there and the last to leave. When I go home for the night I have to tell her, ‘OK, track’s over.’”

As a first-year, Alexander had a teammate who was a role model in terms of work ethic: Keelin Godsey ’06, the Bates thrower nonpareil who won 16 All-America awards and two NCAA titles.

“I think he’s the toughest person I’ve ever met,” Alexander says. “Just knowing how much he practiced, how hard he worked, how good he was. He’s definitely a good person to look to if you want a great athlete in all senses of the word.”

Alexander’s name now dots the team’s record books, too: six indoor marks and three outdoor marks bear her name, and she’s among the top five on Bates’ all-time performance lists in eight other events. She doesn’t exactly bask in her achievements, however.

For example, as a sophomore competing at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, she was one of nine athletes to make the finals of the 400-meter hurdles. The top eight would earn coveted All-America honors, but Alexander finished dead last. Yet this race is one of Alexander’s best memories.

“Some of my favorite races, in retrospect, have been the bad ones,” she says. “Having to walk away as that one person not up on the podium was special, in a way, because then there’s that extra motivation: I don’t want to be that last person again.”

Even when she established herself as an elite Division III athlete in some events (like the 400 hurdles and the 800), it didn’t change her desire to compete in events less suited to her, such as the shot put in the heptathlon or running cross country all four years. “I think it’s important to try and do things that you’re not as good at,” she says. “Dealing with frustrations not only keeps you humble, but I think it makes you more of a complete athlete and person.”

So it’s no surprise, then, that Alexander seems to be “plugged into everything” at Bates, says Kevin McHugh, director of athletics. With men’s soccer and lacrosse player Nate Kellogg ’09, Alexander coordinated the first Bates Field Day last spring, a much-hailed event that brought together an estimated 200 local children to campus for a day of serious game-playing with about 100 Bates student-athletes.

“Izzy has been really focused in terms of getting other athletes involved in community service,” McHugh says. “She seems to have the inherent feeling that that’s an obligation as student-athletes and people.”

The second of four children of Matthew and Pamela Alexander of Harvard, Mass., Alexander is a double major in Spanish and psychology with a 3.7-plus GPA. Like her classmates, she will be thrust into the real world come Commencement on May 31. But at the moment she admits to being preoccupied with track, not the future. “I’ve been having such a good time with this, and I have such a passion for the sport. Maybe it’s an underlying obsession, I don’t know.”

She has even bought into Hartshorn’s advice that going all out all the time, like during those warmups, isn’t always the most pragmatic approach, not only because of the risk of injury but because she wants to be a great teammate, too.

“I think we’re a good team, a good group of people,” she says. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing than what I’m doing with these people.”

Alexander pauses, perhaps trying to remember a day when she didn’t want to be on a track. She remembers last year’s first outdoor meet at Tufts, when wind chills hovered around 20 degrees, and “they were scraping ice off the pits for the steeplechase.”

Giving herself a reality check, she remembers that day, and others. “I ask myself: ‘Is there anywhere in the world that I’d rather be, or something else that I’d rather be doing right now?’ The answer has always been, ‘No.’”

By Andy Walter, photograph By Phyllis Graber Jensen

With 4:34 remaining in the first half of the men’s basketball game vs. Bowdoin on Jan. 23, 2009, Neil Creahan ’10 of Hingham, Mass., drives between Bowdoin defenders and dishes to Jimmy O’Keefe ’10 (not pictured) of Lexington, Mass., for the layup. “The play was for Neil to go one-on-one, to let him operate,” explains head coach Jon Furbush ’05. Creahan picks up the story: “I beat my man, then was met by the second line of defense. With two guys on me, I found O’Keefe on the basket.” The Bobcats won, 57–54, giving Furbush his initial NESCAC coaching victory before a rambunctious home crowd in Alumni Gym.

Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen

Women’s basketball teammates converge after the final buzzer reveals the Bobcats as 73-71 winners over rival Colby in a fiercely contested Jan. 13 Alumni gymnasium contest.

The team finished the regular season with a 62-51 loss at No. 18 nationally ranked Tufts University on Feb. 14 at Cousens Gymnasium.The Bobcats finish 16-8 overall and 5-4 in the conference, and earn the fourth seed in next weekend’s NESCAC Championship. Bates will host fifth-seeded Trinity College (16-7, 4-5 NESCAC) at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, in the tournament quarterfinals.

Read the latest news on the Bates Women’s Basketball team.

Neil Creahan ’10 drives and dishes to Jimmy O’Keefe for a layup in the first half of the men’s basketball team’s 57-54 NESCAC victory over Bowdoin College on Jan. 23. After defeating NESCAC rival Tufts 77-65 on Feb. 14, Bates finishes the regular season at 13-11 overall and 4-5 in conference play. The Bobcats have earned the sixth seed in the NESCAC Championship and will play at No. 3 seed Williams (16-7, 6-2) Saturday, Feb. 21, at 3 p.m. in the conference playoff quarterfinals.

Read the latest news on the Bates Men’s basketball team.