For how many years have I been urging the football program
and Columbia athletics in general to make a strong push for Iraq and Afghan war
vets who excelled at a sport in high school?
I’ll answer that for you: it’s been at least five years.
So you know that I was overjoyed to see this piece this piece in the Columbia Spectator today about 26-year-old baseball sophomore
star Joey Falcone.
In addition to the obvious quality of the piece in general,
the highlights for me are the facts that Falcone is just the kind of veteran I
have wanted to see in more abundance at CU in athletics or non-athletics for
that matter.
To the CU administration’s credit, Columbia was a charter participant
in a matching funds program that basically provides free tuition to all our
veterans who attend GS. In the recruiting wars, Head Coach Pete Mangurian has said publicly that the big difference in the
Ivies now is the financial aid competition between the schools. So I’d say the “free
tuition no matter what” offer to veteran/athletes is hard to beat, no?
GS is also the key route since the College, Engineering and
Barnard don’t accept freshman applicants who are over 21, (that’s a maddening
STUPID policy by the way, but that’s grist for another blog post).
Admittedly, we’re not talking about a huge number of
eligible football players who meet this criteria year after year. But that’s
fine. Just one player like this every couple of years would make a great
statement, provide a whole new source of team leadership, and oh yeah… help us
WIN like the baseball team is currently doing.
I’d like to see one of the assistant coaches put in charge
of trying to identify 3-4 armed forces veterans every year for football. What a
credit to everyone involved in the football program it would be if CU suddenly
established this kind of pipeline!
Let’s get this done. Baseball is doing it. So can football.
21 comments:
Jake, I believe that the "free tuition" comes entirely from the GI Bill and not from Columbia. As far as the merits of what you suggest, I think it actually raises broader questions regarding the role of GS, whether it represents a threat to the independence of Columbia, and the impact of the vastly different GS admissions standards upon our compliance with the league banding requirements for athletic admissions.
Pardon the typo. I meant to say the independence of the College.
The GI bill covers half of it, Columbia was one of the first, if not the first, to match it. As far as the merits of GS, the school has been around for almost a century if you count it's precursor, the "New College," and the esteem of the College has only risen ever since. It poses no threat and is an incredible positive in a time when our younger college kids desperately need to interact with real WORKING adults more.
I recall a story that Penn uses the Nursing School and Cornell uses the School of Hotel Administration as methods to admit athletes. Any truth Jake?
I'm pretty sure school of nursing is not used. Hotelies come into the picture very rarely at Cornell. But the Hotel School is VERY hard to get into. Not a shortcut by any means. Lots of demand every year to go there.
Ag school at Cornell?
Cornell uses hotel, Aggie school, labor relations and one other state school for most varsity athletes. The hardest school for admissions is either arts and sciences or engineering. A former Cornell starting OL told me that he was instructed by the coaches to apply to hotel administration.
Future Lion? Found this photo today on Twitter.com:
https://twitter.com/RBHause32/status/325031820049674240/photo/1
Jake, this is one of your better ideas!
Jake, this is one of your better ideas!
Penn uses Wharton, Brown uses P/F.
Harvard used to have a special class of admissions whereby 10% of the incoming class didn't have to have the same academic qualifications so long as the had a special skill ... noted young artist or musician ... I thought that is how they brought in Pete Varney who played a notable role in the 1968 29-29 Harvard-Yale game
I wonder what academic requirements they have for Amaker's basketball team
Not only is baseball doing it but Wten: shut out Pr, 7-0, beat Penn 4-0
Baseball took three of four from Princeton. I think Princeton only scored four games in total over the four games. The only game we lost was by a 2 to 0 score. Boretti must have developed an incredible pitching staff.
Pardon the typo, I meant to say Princeton only scored a total of four runs in four games
AD WTen win v Pr: The win paired with Yale's loss at Harvard also ensures the Lions at least a share of their first Ivy League title.
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Good post by oldlion. Not to nitpick, but "P" scored 5 runs in 4 games and was lucky to get one win. This CU team seems to have overcome the terrible trip from campus to Baker Field and is poised to clinch the division in a doubleheader on Friday against Penn starting at 1 PM. See you there!
The math is tricky. Even though we are three games ahead of both Cornell and Princeton, we seem to need to win two of our baseball games with Penn to clinch the Gehrig Division title. If we win only one game, then Cornell or Princeton could tie us for the Divisional Championship if one or the other sweeps their series. If we lose all four games to Penn and Cornell or Princeton sweeps, then that team would actually win Gehrig. Of course, I don't expect that to happen, but it is important that our players know they have some critical business to take care of this weekend. Also, we have to better Dartmouth's record to get home field advantage for the Ivy League playoffs.
And if we sweep then we get the home field against Dartmouth. If we,wind up with the same record, Dartmouth wins the tie breaker.
Great news about the baseball team, but back to football for a moment. The spring football closing event is on May 4. Has the program announced what form the event will take - scrimmage or open practice, or something else?
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