Athletic Director (AD) Tom Calder has stepped down from his post and is moving to a new position in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations at Hopkins. He will serve as director of alumni programs, a role he helped to create.
Calder has been the athletic director for 21 years, and for the seven years prior he was associate director. Calder reflected on his time as AD, what he has been able to accomplish, and what he has failed to do. He also spoke to what he hopes to see his successor achieve.
Calder said that he didn’t want to leave Hopkins, but wanted to shift his energies elsewhere.
“I spoke with Kevin Shollenberger, our vice provost [for student affairs], and he oversees athletics, and he actually asked me two years ago what I would like to do down the road, and I said I’d love to work in Alumni Relations,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to do something else in a place you really care about.”
First, Calder made clear that women’s sports teams are never formally referred to as the “Lady Jays,” a term that he finds pejorative. `
“I don’t refer to them as the Lady Jays. Ernie Larossa, who’s our communications guy, he insisted many years ago that we don’t go to that, and I agree... Everybody should be the Blue Jays,” Calder said. “If they refer to themselves as the Lady Jays, that’s probably within their team.”
Calder praised the role of the Office of Student Life for improving the University’s support for students over the last 21 years.
“I think the success of athletics is a result of the support we get from the University. I really think that a big part of improving the undergraduate student life is to make sure that athletics is successful also,” he said. “If you have 720 varsity athletes, that’s a good percentage of your undergraduates, and if most of them are enjoying themselves, then that’s a pretty successful thing.”
Non-athletes need to be more involved in athletics, according to Calder.
“I think what we really need to continue to do — and that the next person who sits in this seat needs to do — is to make sure that we get more undergraduates to come to our games.The vast majority of students who come to our Division III sports, with perhaps the exception of Football, are friends of the athletes or other athletes,” he said. “We’ve tried tailgates, all kinds of things. There’s a lot of work left to do in that area.”
Calder said that it makes sense for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) teams and lacrosse, the only Division I sport at Hopkins, to receive more support from the University community and the Department of Athletics.
“I think we’ve been very successful in the vast majority of sports. Yes, there is a difference between Division I and Division III,” he said. “And there is a difference perhaps in some of the Division III programs because the ones that are in the NCAA — not all of our sports are in the NCAA — and the ones that in our conference, the Centennial Conference, are the ones that perhaps we give a little more attention to.”
Calder agreed that their lack of support was a valid concern for some athletes to have, but that winning championships should be the first priority.
“You have to pretty much look at your sports, your programs, and if they’re in the conference and they can win a conference championship, and they can go to the NCAAs, then that’s more important than perhaps looking at a program that isn’t in the Centennial Conference,” he said.
According to Calder, the lacrosse teams deserve the privileges and prestige given to them because of their Division I status.
“No, I think that they’re a Division I program so that they are treated differently than the Division III programs,” he said.
Calder contends that the lacrosse team has become more integrated into the Hopkins community since Dave Pietramala became head coach but that athletes tend to concentrate into a select few majors.
“I think that many athletes tend to flow into certain majors,” he said. “I think because of the way we [athletes] are, if you will, many of us are in those majors. I’m not sure what percent of the undergraduates are economics majors, but I think there’s probably a good percentage of our lacrosse players that are just because of their personalities.”
When asked whether there are reasons other than personality that drive athletes to choose certain majors, like the availability of back tests and advice from teammates, Calder said, “I wouldn’t know.”
The Department of Athletics should work on encouraging good grades among athletes as well, according to Calder.
“I think, continue to do what we’re doing as far as making sure that our athletes are doing well in school here,” he said. “You know, we’re going to do well on the field because we have excellent coaches, but making sure that they do well in academics, it’s an important thing.”
In the past, entire years of players on some teams, notably women’s volleyball, have quit over coaching disputes. Calder said that coaching changes and player fatigue are more likely to cause player exodus than bad coaching.
“On any team there are players that quit... Some of it is they just get tired, they’ve been playing the same sport since they were ten years old, so they get to a certain point that they see that they’re engineering majors or whatever, that it’s a lot of time out of your day that you’ve got to be involved with the program,” he said. “I think oftentimes when athletes leave teams, it might be when they get a new coach and that new coach has a different philosophy than they’re used to.”
Calder doesn’t think that athletes should be allowed to anonymously complain about their coaches, and he praised the department’s complaint process.
“We have a process in place where they can bring that up. They can go to the coach first, then after that they go to my deputy and speak with him, and then we decide what we’re going to do,” he said. “I think that part of growing up, if you will, is in the future world, students who graduate from Hopkins or any institution, when they don’t like the way something is going at work, they going to have to go to their boss.”
Students have mixed reactions to Calder’s time as Athletic Director.
An anonymous athlete described on his experience with the athletic department at Hopkins.
“With our team, we didn’t get as much funding as we needed,” the student said. “We definitely need more resources for our team to be successful.”
Of the past three years, the athlete’s team has competed in the Elite Eight twice. Over these three years, the amount of funding the team received has decreased. The amount of practice time available for the student’s team was also decreased.
Stephanie Yokoyama, a senior on the women’s volleyball team, praised his relationship with different coaches and sports teams.
“Tom Calder has always been a strong supporter of our program. Throughout the shift in our coaching staff and team philosophies, he has been a resilient friend, mentor, and active voice through it all,” she wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “He shows his love for Johns Hopkins Athletics by attending many games despite his busy schedule and conducting many behind the scene acts to improve the many incredible programs.”
Yokoyama also responded to changes the volleyball team has had to undergo as a result of a past incident when senior players collectively left the team. She emphasized the loyalty she and current seniors feel towards Calder and Hopkins volleyball.
“Thanks to all players, coaching staff, and members of the athletic department, including Tom Calder, our goals as a program were able to become a reality,” she wrote.
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