Earlier this month, the New York Times published a story about an ongoing tug-of-war between academics and athletics at Williams College.

Thus Joyia Chadwick became perhaps the first Free State High graduate ever to be quoted in the prestigious Big Apple newspaper.

Chadwick is a big fish in the small NCAA Division III volleyball pond. A 6-foot-2 sophomore, Chadwick was named league player of the year as she helped the Ephs reach the Division III quarterfinals where they bowed last Saturday to Juniata.

Reporters tend to gravitate toward standout athletes for opinions, so Chadwick was a natural candidate for a question about the campus uneasiness precipitated by Williams winning in volleyball and other sports.

“It’s funny that anyone would call this a jock school,” Chadwick told the Times. “Everyone comes here first for the academics.”

Then she added that many Williams students enjoy the challenge of athletics as well as academics, stating: “So we have the best of both. What’s wrong with that?”

Now back in Lawrence for the Thanksgiving break, Chadwick elaborated on the war between academics and athletics at the Massachusetts school.

Huge topic of debate

“That’s been a huge topic of debate ever since I’ve been at Williams,” she said. “As long as we keep winning, the battle between the faculty and athletics will continue.”

No doubt many of the more than 2,000 students who enrolled at the out-of-the-way scholarly bastion in Williamstown, Mass., are like Chadwick :quot; talented both athletically and academically, yet not really that interested in NCAA Division I.

Chadwick, for instance, was offered a full ride by Nevada-Reno and grant-in-aid from Georgetown. Of the two, Georgetown seemed to offer the best of both academic and athletic worlds. Only it didn’t.

“Georgetown has a beautiful campus and I love Washington, D.C.,” Chadwick said, “but when I visited it was painfully obvious I wouldn’t fit in well there.”

In other words, everything didn’t click, so Chadwick began thinking about Williams College.

“I had really never heard of it, but I thought I should look into it, and it was what I was looking for,” she said. “Now I just love it.”

Financial aid helps

As anyone who has college-age children knows, small private colleges like Williams cost as much annually as the sticker price on a loaded SUV. Williams College students pay about $33,000 a year for room, board, books, tuition, etc., and the Chadwicks aren’t the Rockefellers. Her father Dennis, former associate pastor at First Christian Church, works part-time and her mother Judy spends most of her time caring for her elderly mother.

Williams College doesn’t give scholarships, but the school does have dollars available for its students.

“If you’re admitted and you need financial aid,” Joyia’s mother said, “they’ll supply it. Joyia has very heavy financial aid.”

Joyia Chadwick ranks as one of the bright and shining lights of the short six-year history of Free State High. In addition to being one of the school’s valedictorians in 2001, she was a three-year starter in basketball and volleyball, a talented half-miler who earned a couple of state track medals, and she played flute and piccolo in the Firebirds’ marching and concert bands.

At Williams College, she has forsaken basketball, but she does compete in both indoor and outdoor track.

“Volleyball is definitely No. 1 with me,” Chadwick said, “but I just love track. I do it to keep in shape for volleyball.”

She still plays piano

Although she isn’t participating in band or orchestra anymore, Joyia does play the piano at Christian youth fellowship functions and she is taking a course in the history of symphony orchestras along with studying French, Linear Algebra and Political Theory this semester.

Chadwick doesn’t have to declare a major until next spring.

“Right now I’m leaning toward math,” she said, “but I’m also interested in political science.”

And who knows : she might even find her name in the New York Times again.

“That was pretty cool,” Chadwick said with a smile.