A Conversation with Bard's Baseball Booster
By J.p. Lawrence and Kurt Schmidlein
Jim Chambers is many things: a Bard student, a gym owner and the bearded father of three. He is Bard’s baseball coach, a Russian Studies major and the goalie on Bard’s championship hockey team. Look back into his family history long enough, and you’re liable to find a former presidential candidate. We caught up with this character and asked him about the relationship between academics and athletics at Bard college.
FP: Did you really start the baseball team?
JC: Yes I did. I left [Bard] for a while, and one of the reasons I left was to go play baseball somewhere with a baseball program. So when I came back [to Bard] I started a club team.
FP: There’s a donation now for a baseball field - do you know who the donor is?
JC: The donor has requested to remain anonymous, as far as I know.
FP: How did this donation come about?
JC: When I started the [baseball] club, I had a discussion with the Athletics Department about why I was doing it and what might happen in the future, and they told me right off the bat that they would love to see baseball to become a varsity sport at Bard, that the department was behind the idea and that the school would be behind the idea, but that the big problem was that there was no facilities for it. Ever since that first year, everyone in athletics at Bard has collectively [been] trying to raise funds to get a field together, whether from one private donor or more than one,. I know the person who is making this donation thought about it, investigated it, and had a discussion with Kris [Hall]. Over a period of months, I wasn’t involved in that process other than hearing about it - but around October it was announced that it was going to happen, and [since then] I’ve been involved in a lot of the planning of what kind of field it’s going to be, about the location, and all that kind of stuff.
FP: How would you respond to those who think we don’t need a baseball field and that the funds should be directed elsewhere?
JC: From what I know of this situation, this particular money would not be going to Bard if it wasn’t for this purpose. So you can take that or not, it’s as simple as that. If a donor wants to give money for a specific project and the school approves that project then it is what it is. If someone gives me a present, I don’t start to complain and say “it should have been something else.”
On the flip side, a lot of the students may not understand the value of athletics in a college environment, especially at Bard. I don’t think anyone is trying to change Bard to a jock school, I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. And I don’t think anyone is going to try to bring athletes into Bard who aren’t Bard caliber students otherwise. I think what happens is you get a more dynamic community when you have people involved in athletics, because traditionally, until the past 10 years or so, Bard was not a very athletic place.
So as we try to bring in more science students, more math students with the RKC, or as we expanded the economics program, or put in the conservatory.... we can also bring in athletes who have a whole other perspective. Something I’ll tell you about athletes, [they have] a level of responsibility and organization and commitment that comes that I think adds to their capacity as a student. If they’re playing on a full scholarship for a gigantic school that’s not a very good school, that may be a different story... they may have people doing their homework for them. At bard, it obviously doesn’t work that way. I think you have student athletes at Bard who are very likely to be committed to the work they’re doing and really responsible in their work.
I’m not a musician or an actor, but I certainly see the value in building the Fisher Center. I think when there’s a field out there and we have Friday night games against Vassar and people can come sit out in the stands and cheer on Bard and express what Bard’s all about, I think people will see that as an asset.