Earlham seeks to attract students who love sports and scholarship in equal measure. The ideal Earlham athlete is as satisfied with a good paper as a good game, as thrilled by a successful experiment as a winning race, as comfortable acting in a play as in making a free throw.

We expect Earlham athletes to be fully involved in the intellectual, political and social life of the College. Because athletics are not the only activity in their lives, they have friends who are not athletes — friends whom they met in classrooms, in labs, on committees and in student organizations. At Earlham, perhaps even more than at other small colleges, friends watch friends compete. Professors respect and appreciate the hard work of athletes in their courses and look forward to supporting those students in their athletic endeavors. Well-attended events are evidence that Earlham athletes are engaged in the larger campus community.

We aspire at Earlham to engage in athletics in a way that accords with our mission to improve human society. Successful athletic performance requires disciplined teamwork by people of different races, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, economic backgrounds, political persuasions and sexual orientations. Differences are both honored and transcended in the pursuit of team goals. We expect our athletes to collaborate effectively while maintaining high moral standards of personal conduct — and thereby model for all to see the possibility of a cooperative human society.

Earlham’s aspirations commit us to offering a model of college athletics in which academics are fully complementary. We insist that our athletes be inclusive, tolerant and socially responsible community members. Earlham athletes are student athletes in the fullest sense. They receive the same care as non-athletes throughout the admissions process and in the classroom.

As a learning institution, we expect Earlham student athletes to improve from game to game and from season to season. We expect Earlham student athletes and Earlham athletic teams to strive for excellence. We expect them to play consistently with intelligence, intensity, teamwork and confidence. Our athletic teams are a profound and visible model of the learning communities we nurture across the College.

We expect Earlham student athletes and athletic teams to play to win. We celebrate the students who win graduate fellowships, the students who are admitted to medical schools, the students who perform many hours of volunteer service. These achievements are signs that Earlham is achieving the excellence it values. Athletic victories are no different; they are benchmarks of excellence.

Victory is sweet and defeat is bitter. We celebrate victories, all of us feeling lifted by these accomplishments. In addition, victories bring all members of the community (including the alumni) together in a spirit of joy and community pride. Perhaps best of all, victories bring feelings of deep satisfaction to the athletes themselves. Victories become life-long memories — but so do defeats. We experience with our athletes the frustrations and disappointments of defeat. For teams that have tried their best and treated each other with respect and affection, all memories become good ones.

Earlham College values intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of a liberal arts education. A conscientiously designed varsity athletic program can offer practical expression of the belief in the individual’s integrity, wholeness and potential for excellence and in the commitment of the individual to a community of persons with a common goal. The training, exercise and enjoyment of the mind and body, and the discipline of cooperation and competition that athletic experience can promote are essential aspects of a liberal education.

Nationally affiliated with the NCAA as a Division III member, Earlham offers academic scholarships to qualifying students as well as need-based financial aid. The College also is a proud member of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC). Consisting of 10 academically selective colleges and universities in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, the HCAC includes Anderson University, Bluffton University, Defiance College, Earlham College, Franklin College, Hanover College, Manchester College, College of Mount St. Joseph, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Transylvania University. The HCAC is dedicated to fostering a complementary relationship between intercollegiate athletics and the pursuit of academic excellence. In field hockey, Earlham is an affiliate member of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC).

Earlham offers varsity programs in 20 sports — 10 for women and 10 for men. Women’s sports are basketball, cross country, field hockey, golf, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, tennis and volleyball. Men’s sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, lacrosse, indoor track, outdoor track, soccer and tennis. Many of our students participate on more than one team.

Earlham embraces intercollegiate athletic competition as a learning experience which requires each participant to strive to excel, and according to the sport, to cooperate with team members and other contestants in an event defined by established rules and expectations. The peak experience for which athletes will be prepared, and which we hope they will strive to experience, is the union of mind, body and spirit in the competitive moment or encounter. Within reasonable limits, Earlham will provide a variety of varsity sports to satisfy the variety of student interests and will assure that men and women have equal opportunity to develop excellence in sports of their choice.

Varsity athletics offers that experience to individuals who wish to prepare seriously for competitive intercollegiate challenges. In combination with other competitive levels — activity classes, recreational sports and club sports — the total athletic program complements and enhances the academic and social experiences of a liberal arts education.

For information on Earlham’s athletic facilities, click on the “Facilities” tab in the menu at goearlham.com.

For more information, visit goearlham.com — the online home of Earlham Athletics.