While I am not a Williams alumnus nor am I a runner, I was an eight letter winner in a D-1 school and did grow up in the Purple Valley. I knew both Farley and Farwell, both of whom I can say are good people. I happened upon this site looking for NESCAC average parent salaries.
I was not surprised to hear such accolades on all aspects regarding Williams. I'd heard that my whole life from staff to students, with a few admitting objectively to flaws.
As far as sports at Williams and other NESCAC schools go, I have known many coaches in many sports. They have admitted that winning titles as one blogger put it, has been of great importance for some time, to the extent that academic standards have been dropped to accept a stellar student-athlete. In fact, I just remembered I coached one who ended up #1 in the country D-III.
That doesn't surprise me given the number of national rankings and championships, say, Williams and Middlebury have won during the same period. Such schools have decided that in part to market their school, high academic standards aren't enough. Just like their D-1 counterparts, NESCAC schools know that sports are high profile for any school and an excellent marketing tool even if they generate little revenue. Don't forget this is a sports culture.
The myth that bugs me the most in my IVY League experience and the NESCAC experience by association is that there are no de jure athletic scholarships when I know at all the aforementioned schools shift aid around to accomodate the need of a prospective athlete to create a de facto athletic scholarship even at D-III and in the Ivies. I am a perfect example who actually needed financial aid but who received a lot more because I would be enrolling as a student-athlete.
If you think these elite/ist schools can't fudge the paperwork for the NCAA and for the admissions offices and fin. aid, think again as coaches can pettition admissions offices and fin. aid offices when a prospective student athlete is "sub par" academically. They do so just as parents fudge the FAFSA by shifting their own assets to grandparents' whose holdings are not checked. NESCAC admissions officers assign A, B, C, etc to a prospective student-athlete in a coordinated effort with the coaches. This helps the weaker prospective student have an edge in the admissions process. Ditto Ivy League.
Steriod takers want to be the best regardless of the level, not necessarily to go pro. Of course, there is a false logic as one blogger suggested simply because of the risks. But so many risks in life are overlooked if one has a purpose for doing so. As I looked around my D-1 locker rooms, I knew who was "juicing" and probably wouldn't go pro. I also know that the NCAA's surprise tests are ones with which I would never meddle.
FINALLY, to say that Williams students are too smart to take steriods is naive. As I said, I have heard of Williams' vaunted status for my whole life (eg powerful alumni, etc). But I have also been close enough to the campus to hear of umpteen sordid tales of drugs, drinking, hazing, racism, rape (especially rape) faculty sleeping with students, etc. Hearsay, admittedly but not all of it, but not impossible in any school in this country. Williams kids are as falible as any, and its student-athletes might not on the whole want anything to do with steriods, I'll bet Williams' 11.5B USD endowment (the highest in the nation per capita even topping Harvard 19.5B USD overall) on the slight few who try it just for the sake of doing so or with winning in mind.
I apologize for the babble, but the comments touched many subjects. I hope I clarified a few.