My name is Anthony Villamagna, and I am a Columbia football player who will be graduating this year with many of you. In light of the recent events involving Chad Washington, I would like to present my own perspective on some of the issues surrounding the football team that have arisen recently.
My views are not reflective of the football team, the coaching staff, the athletics department, or any of my teammates. My views should not be treated as those of any group or organization on campus.
I will not comment directly on Chad Washington’s arrest or the circumstances surrounding it. I will not make a judgment on the events of this past weekend until the process of the law has run its course. I reaffirm the stance taken by the Asian American Alliance and many others in the administration and across campus that hate crimes, physical and verbal abuse have absolutely no place at Columbia. Every person has the right to be protected from these acts.
The football team is made up of roughly 100 individuals with widely diverse personal backgrounds. Our political ideologies, extracurricular interests, and personal philosophies differ from person to person. We are not a homogenous group, but rather a collection of individuals connected by their love of football. I was upset and disappointed by some of the tweets posted by my teammates, because, having known many of them for a number of years, I do not feel as if they accurately reflect their beliefs. They were, in my opinion, moments of very poor judgment by people who should have known better. My teammates should be held accountable for what they published, as should any person who would write such comments. I do not share any of the homophobic or racist views expressed in the tweets, nor do I believe they are shared by the majority of Columbia football players.
Much has been made over the “divide” between regular students and student-athletesat Columbia. As a football player, my days were scheduled around football and classes. The overwhelming majority of my time was spent with my teammates. I came to school along with the rest of my teammates before other students to attend our “Camp”, or pre-season practices, for about 14 hours a day every day for two weeks before school started. While other students were bonding at NSOP, I was bonding with my teammates through our mutual suffering. I don’t believe I had my first meaningful interaction with a non-football player until after our season ended around Thanksgiving time. This is mostly my fault—I should have made a greater effort to reach out to my classmates. Since then, I have tried to interact with people outside of my “insular” football group and have made some good friends who are not associated with football or athletics in any way.
I recognize that my gray sweatshirt, which is emblazoned with “COLUMBIA FOOTBALL,” will automatically garner prejudice against me. It is disheartening to hear a professor, upon hearing that I’m a football player on the last day of class, tell me, “You hide it well.” There is animosity on both sides, from athletes and from non-athletes, some deserved, but most of it not. I cannot help but think that a small number of athletes and a small number of students widen the divide for our entire community. I believe that I am both a Columbia student and a Columbia football player. The two need not be mutually exclusive.
In short, some of the public views of a minority of my teammates are utterly shocking to me. I have been with these guys for many hours and I do not believe them to be as bigoted as they appear to be through their comments. That being said, their words are rightfully being condemned across the community, and they are being held accountable for what they said. I hope to impress upon the Columbia community at large that I believe these views are not common in a majority of the football team. This is an eye-opening moment that warrants considerable soul-searching. I hope that it will serve as a learning experience to remind us that everyone is responsible for what they say and that we as a united Columbia community will move forward with greater awareness and greater understanding.
The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics. He is a member of the varsity football team.
15 comments:
Jake, quick correction, his name is Anthony Villamagna, not Villamanga.
Will fix, thanks
Jake-
I am both embarrassed and outraged by the content and nature of the twitter comments by the members of the Columbia Football Team.
I think the Athletic Dept should immediately ban the use of twitter by ALL Columbia athletes.
Diane Murphy needs to step up and provide leadership as does Mangurian who has been silent since this "event" took place.
A Very Disturbed Columbia Football Alum from the 1980's
I think a lot of people are probably mistaken when they assume that the coaches don't spend time warning the kids about tweets, public behavior, the public's perception of them, etc.
Just because the kids made some bad decisions doesn't mean that they weren't warned to watch themselves.
Naso, Garrett, and McElreavy all routinely would remind us that we are under a microscope and a different set of standards than others because we were athletes and football players.
Most of us understood that and behaved accordingly and yet it seemed like every year a small percentage of our guys didn't.
look at your own kids, do they always listen to you and/or take your advice? I doubt it...
Very good point.
Didn't catch her name but a panelist on KCR said Wed. that she had one meeting about social media. She didn't note any other type of communication from coaches.
WOF
Not to be glib, but you really had a tough bunch of coaches at old CU. You must really love the game to still be interested in our lions.
"Naso, Garrett, and McElreavy all routinely would remind us that we are under a microscope and a different set of standards than others because we were athletes and football players" Former Dartmouth player from the early 1990s here. Teevens likewise warned his players that they were living in a fishbowl and certain parts of campus wanted to see us mess up. At least every other week.
Mangurian has posted on his blog.
Excellent, comprehensive blog by Coach Mangurian.
The sports staff at WKCR had me fooled. At first I thought that they were trying to expose and correct a serious problem. At this point, based upon their tweets, they are using this sorry episode for their own 15 minutes of fame. They are milking it for all It is worth and no longer playing a constructive role by their incessant efforts to obtain national media attention.
jock/doc: In some ways I think many of us from our era are closer than most because we went through something extreme together. We will never be satisfied until CU finally finds a way to win a championship, either and we will savor it as much as anyone.
Darmouth guy: Yes, I would think any Ivy coach and many other academic schools drive home that point regularly.
I assume the girl on KCR was not on the football team and just because social media was singled out only once to her I am pretty confident that the coaches for all sports routinely remind the players that they lived in the proverbial fishbowl...
Its amazing how the the rise of social media has made that fishbowl so much smaller, compared to the Gasso, Garrett and McElreavy years. Sometimes people do strange and uncharacteristic things if they dont think they are being watched.....I daresay you'd find all kinds of stuff if you published the tweets of FB players at other schools. That doesn't make it acceptable at all.
Most Columbians are attracted here in part by the diversity, so this whole episode strikes me as an aberration.
Thank goodness there are intelligent, sensitive football players like Anthony Villamagna. Thank you, Anthony.
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