Top 10 Weather Disasters

The field at halftime, 10/29/2011

Spring practice is into its second week and the team has pretty much now experienced every kind of weather there is in the last 96 hours. There’s been 80 degree heat, 38 degree cold, high winds, clear skies, powerful rain, the whole shebang.

Head Coach Pete Mangurian even Tweeted his approval of all the extra weather experience the team is soaking in the last few days.

And that got me thinking of the most extreme weather games the Lions have faced over the last 25 years.

Here are my Top 10:

10) The New Haven Wind

October 28, 2000

Yale 41 Columbia 0

Almost everywhere else in the tri-state area, this was a pretty pleasant day. But inside the Yale Bowl for some reason, the wind was so powerful and unpredictable that it really messed with the game time after time. The Lions seemed to have no answers for the conditions and they appeared to pack it in early.

9) Super Sick Soaker

October 24, 2009

Dartmouth 28 Columbia 6

A continuous downpour washed out this Homecoming game for Dartmouth, and the incoming storm seemed to make a number of ailing Columbia team members feel actually worse as gametime drew closer. An already injured QB M.A. Olawale found his passes falling way short against the rain and wind, and star running back Ray Rangel was lost for the remainder of his career with a foot injury on the wet field.  

8) Fisher Field Fiasco

October 8, 2005

Lafayette 14 Columbia 7

Anyone who wonders why Lafayette decided to renovate its football field seven years ago didn’t go to this game in 2005. Water was not only pouring out from the sky, but it was coming out of the granite walls that ringed the old seating area. The field was so muddy, it was impossible to really know the yard lines for much of the game.

7) Homecoming Hell

October 21, 1995

Columbia 21 Yale 7

The forecast had been warning for days that the 1995 Homecoming game at Wien Stadium was going to be a major storm. It was. The rain was dripping right into the Homecoming hospitality tent all day and the play on the field was slippery too. Luckily, Columbia got a great running game going and the defense was stellar.

6) Providence Freeze

November 22, 2008

Brown 41 Columbia 10

The Lions finish every other season up north in Providence. And you would think that many of those year-enders are super cold. But luckily, that has almost never been the case. But the 2008 game was just brutally cold. I couldn’t stand to see my co-broadcaster Jerry Recco suffering pre-game, so I ran out and bought him a pair of gloves. In between plays, Jerry and I slid the press box window shut to get some degree of warmth. On the field, the Bears laughed at the cold as they clinched a share of the Ivy title. Nobody else was laughing. As big a game as it was for Brown, the stands were mostly empty.

5) Goal Post Panic

October 25, 2008

Columbia 28 Dartmouth 13

The Lions have faced games with heavy rain. The Lions have faced games with high winds. But rarely have they had to play when the rain AND the wind were both so strong at the same time. At many times during the game, it really looked like the goal posts would blow down. This was the game where M.A. Olawale came in in relief and pushed Columbia to a big win on national TV no less.

4) Monsoon on the Hudson

October 19, 1996

Columbia 3 Lafayette 0

A very steady rain and wind marred Homecoming for the second straight year, but the Lions found a way to win as they so often did in the first half of 1996. The weather was so bad, I even got a prime parking spot right next to the stadium even though it was Homecoming!

3) Towson Time Out

September 27, 2008

You knew 2008 was going to be a rough weather year when you even had historically bad weather games in September! A massive downpour in the Baltimore area began about an hour before game time and never really stopped. The refs actually stopped play late in the second quarter and sent the teams back to the locker rooms.

2) Big Red Washout

November 10, 1990

Cornell 41 Columbia 0

The 1990 Cornell team was the last Big Red squad to win any part of an Ivy title. They didn’t need any help to beat Columbia that day, but they got a big assist from an absolutely relentless rain storm. It was so bad that I remember simply walking up to the sideline and watching the game from there; none of the stadium security people were left around to stop me. I think I am still wet from that game.

1   1)   Snow Day

October 29, 2011

Yale 16 Columbia 13

Lots of people use the term, “freak storm,” a little too much. But the late October Halloween “Snow-Easter” of 2011 was truly unexpected and powerful. Columbia and Yale and the YES Network were all caught right in the middle of it. It was a brutal game to sit through as the wind and the snow just kept coming. The fact that the Lions came up just short made it even worse.  The only saving grace was that Columbia was giving out free fan hand towels that day, so people had something to hoard and use as a seat drier.