Scooter Hollis. third from the right
Scooter the Shooter
Incoming freshman QB Scooter Hollis and his high school basketball team have made the top state tournament in Kentucky. They begin play tomorrow at the famed Rupp Arena.
Anyone else think Hollis may be just a total package athlete who could end up at WR or even RB with the Lions?
It's Official
New Rutgers Head Coach Kyle Flood formally introduced Norries Wilson as his new running backs coach yesterday. Flood specifically singled out Wilson's years as a coordinator in the Big East.
Mixed Messages
You always have to know your audience.
What's great, but very challenging, about my audience here is that you have so many different points of view. Other than professing my love for the Lion football team, it's a sure bet that anything I write will meet with some public or private disagreement.
And that's fine. I wouldn't expect anything less from a bunch of Ivy League guys who lived in New York for at least four years.
But the folks at the Ivy League sports office clearly DON'T know their audience and they don't know their potential audience either.
The latest example comes via a Facebook update and accompanying press release this week from the league boasting about how Penn, Princeton, and Yale are playing in postseason tournaments in addition to Harvard going to the big dance.
This from the same league that doesn't allow its football champion to advance to the FCS playoffs even though the FCS is dying to get the Ivy champs included in the event and has been for years.
Publishing a release like that shows an acute ignorance about Ivy League fans, who support allowing the football champs to go to the playoffs by a better than 95% margin.
And it gets even worse...
The League also announced this week that it's partnering with a sports marketing firm to:
"procure sponsorship opportunities for the conference as well as provide other marketing functions, including social media, public relations and domestic licensing."
Now, I'm all in favor of marketing the Ivies more... that's a big part of what this blog is about!
But how can the Ivies be looking to market the product to new eyes and ears when it continues to alienate and erode its core customers by refusing to give us even the smallest crumb like entrance into the FCS playoffs?
I feel for the guys and gals at Leverage Agency who will have to gloss over this tiny little problem.
I feel for them much like I feel for the guys who do Columbia sports marketing, like Barry Neuberger who does a tireless job pushing Lion athletics despite not ever seeing one winning football team or one winning, (in the Ivies), men's basketball team in his ENTIRE 8-year-plus tenure!
I am the proudest guy in the world when it comes to our student athletes at all the Ivies, and my writings over the last 7 years prove that beyond a doubt.
But I want us to be more competitive athletically. First, Columbia needs to win a football or a men's basketball Ivy title THIS DECADE. Enough of the waiting period and patting ourselves on the back because we have nice retention rates and raise a lot of money.
League-wide, we need entry into the FCS playoffs, more administrative support for athletics, and some athletic scholarships.
Until we get those things, marketing the league will be one Hell of a tough job for leverage or anyone else.
But hey, I wish them good luck.
8 comments:
Jake, for your information I recently spoke to one of our returning veterans about our prospects for next Fall. This very bright young man, who is not in the slightest bit naive in my humble opinion, honestly believes that we will make a serious run for the title next year. He believes that the talent is there and that the business-like approach by Mangurian and his staff are already paying dividends. These comments assumed no help whatsoever from the incoming class.
I concur with Old Lion. The players are embracing into what the new coaching staff is implementing, both physically and mentally. Those I have spoken with say the caliber of the new staff is outstanding - they have been there and done that - and know how to teach. The only issue I have heard is that the 6 to 8 am practices are potentially going to wreak havoc with class schedules. Many players have the 9am classes as they scheduled with the same spring practice times as before in mind. Ending at 8 and getting back to campus for a 9am class is going to be a miracle.
I am also hearing that first year Connor Nelligan is an amazing talent who will have a breakout year at WR. He is big, fast, and has good hands.
It's great to hear that the players are excited about the new coaching staff but let's remember the players have no idea -- NO IDEA -- how competitive they will be next year. They will always overrate their own abilities and underrate the progress other teams are making. It's not unique to Columbia. Last year on this blog we had any number of posters claiming we would be undefeated at homecoming, based on their conversations with players. Who else remembers that?
With better coaching we would have been undefeated at Homecoming and would have won the Homecoming game. We shot ourselves in the foot at the Fordham game with some coaching blunders including Vinnie's call before the half, Bags picked our pocket with the refs at HC, and we should have put Princeton away. The season got away from us after the Penn game, but the kids were right to be optimistic going into the season.
My fantasy would be Barry Neuberger offering Columbia Championship hats and tee shirts at half price, because they were LAST YEARS Championship stuff. An FCS football Ivy entry would create tremendous interest- absolutely agree!
Sorry, but that is a delusional comment above. Did you not watch the games? Albany pasted us. Sacred Heart scored at will. We played poorly vs. Princeton and did not deserve to win. Yes, we had a poorly coached team last year, but this was not a 6-win team that caught some epic bad breaks. It's great that the kids are excited and all of us expect better in 2012 but let's keep in mind the players don't know what's happening in the weight rooms at Harvard or Penn, and they don't have any way to measure their own progress vs. others.
Everyone says "the right things" when a new regime takes the reins. This is Columbia people and until we see turnaround on the field all the off-season rhetoric is just that, talk. I remember all these things being said after Wilson took over too,no one says hey this new staff is horrible and we're gonna suck. I'm all for optimism, it's the centerpiece of the CU fan,but let's have a year where we break five hundred and go from there.
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