25 years ago today, the Columbia Lions football team won the most significant victory of my lifetime.
I'd like to say it was a game to clinch an Ivy title, but that hasn't happened since before I was born.
I'd like to say it was one of the three games that Columbia has won in my lifetime to clinch winning seasons.
But the one win that meant the most to the fans, players and the entire school came 25 years ago today when the Lions defeated the Princeton Tigers 16-13 at Homecoming to end a 44 game losing streak.
If your weren't a student or employee at Columbia at the time, it's impossible to explain how much the win meant to all of us and how genuine and intense the celebrations were on campus late that afternoon and deep into the night.
My own personal connection to the game is profound. It was my freshman year. I had started to truly get interested in Columbia football the previous week by watching the Lions nearly beat mighty Penn on ESPN. But I wasn't so into the Lions that I planned on missing the NLCS game on TV that Saturday afternoon.
Still, just to be safe I propped a radio next to my seat and followed both games at once. When halftime rolled around and I heard Columbia still had the lead, something told me to get on the subway fast and get to the game immediately. I arrived in plenty of time to see the Lions seal the win and the goalposts get ripped down. It was incredible.
Here's a link to some extensive reports on the actual game and everything connected to it.
I encourage anyone who remembers the game and weeks and years leading up to it to post their memories in the comments section.
And I do that, because as far as the athletic department is concerned the game doesn't exist.
I get not wanting to be associated with the losses of the past, but considering how unsuccessful the team is now it seems hardly the place of the athletic department to stand on ceremony and refuse to publish something to mark the 25th anniversary.
But then again, we are dealing with a department that wouldn't even publish a short obituary on its website for the man who scored the winning TD in that game, Solomon Johnson '91.
We are talking about an athletic department that has such disrespect and disdain for the fans and alums that it actually crafted a long response to explain why it wouldn't publish an obit. And that response certainly took more time and effort than it would have required to actually just publish an obit.
Remember, Johnson was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year for 1988. Does anyone in their right mind think that any of the other seven Ivy schools would have just ignored the death of such an honored player on their websites?
Of course, they did publish a nice obit in the game program for the first game of the season vs. Monmouth. But that obit was probably read by fewer than 1,500 people. I know the website gets thousands of hits in any given week. It was a wasted and confused effort, and it's characteristic of how this department operates.
The way Johnson's death was ignored and the polite but impassioned pleas of the alums to mark this sad event were also swept aside are just a crime against decency and compassion for Johnson's grieving family, friends and admirers.
And it says nothing about how this same department is also responsible for pushing this team right back to the national laughingstock spot it was in prior to the win on October 8, 1988.
A department that refuses to make even a small acknowledgement in a timely and prominent fashion for a deceased player is exactly the kind of department that would conduct a sham search for a new head football coach. And that's what Director Dianne Murphy did in 2011, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Somehow, some way, despite this terrible behavior and managerial misconduct, Columbia football continues to lure high quality and talented players year after year. I assure you, this is not due to the work of the athletic department, but it's in spite of it.
So while I still look back fondly at that rainy day in 1988 when the entire Columbia campus exulted in an historic Lion victory, I can only say the feeling is bittersweet because CU is no closer to a having a truly winning program than it was 25 years ago. In fact, after the first three weeks of this season we actually look further from it than ever.
28 comments:
"Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it"
-George Santayana
Does the AD page run any obits of former players at all?
While Johnson was a FB, personal star, who died much too soon, he wasn't, isn't the only former athlete to have died.
I'd guess CCT will have something.
Type "death," "mourns," or "passes" into the search feature of the Columbia Athletics page, and you'll get some stories of former athletes passing away. For whatever reason, they didn't do it for Johnson, and that's a shame.
Johnson had a large spread in the program at the Monmouth game.
"When you're my way or the highway, you must win now,'' Sapp said. "Because guys don't believe in your way when you're losing. And you lose the way they lost the first two weeks, you gave away those football games. And whenever you've given away football games, that means your style needs to change."
- Warren Sapp speaking about Schiano (Tampa Bay Head Coach)
"For some reason..." The reasons were stupidity and laziness. The dept has a surplus of that. As for the spread in the program, NO ONE saw it!!!
A few questions: how long has Murphy been AD, is she under contract and if so when does it expire, does she have any plans to retire any time soon, where is her base of support, did she in fact make the hiring call on the current HCs in FB and men's basketball, what is her compensation range, and to whom does she report?
Jake , it really makes me feel bad for these kids to hear that they are the "laughing stock".of all the Ivy Teams . My son who really does not know much about your blog, is still in. He continues to repeat , that we are really trying to improve and get better each week.he does not feel about the coaches as most people who post here do. So I give him my full support and a lot of credit for not giving up. He as well as his teammates. I as a parent am just so frustrated that he gives his all and they have ( and always have had) nothing to show for it. Man, something is wrong.
Tell Dianne your concerns. If she blows you off, tell us here and we won't let her get away with it. I'm sick of being too gentle with these horribly incompetent people.
Jake , you know I can't do that... My son plays on the team. Need I say more?
Murphy has been AD since 2003 or 2004. She reports to Bollinger, who I sincerely believe does not want us to win, or at least will never have the will to fire Dianne. So we're stuck unless we make a public stink and/ or get a big ally like Kraft, Campbell or maybe the Maniatty family to join us.
I appreciate Jake's reminiscing about the game that ended the streak. I was a freshman in 1982 and we had, as usual, a bad football team. But right around now, early October, we thrashed Princeton, 35-14. The campus went nuts. Guys were screaming out of their dorm windows. Columbia is small enough that everyone knows somebody on the football team, so when we won, people were happy for their friends. It was a great night and a news flash to this freshman that the legendary campus apathy toward sports was greatly exaggerated.
The next year, our soccer team made it to the NCAA title game and there was a similar happy intensity on campus. Last year, baseball had a sellout crowd for the Ivy championship. The students got behind the team, had fun, cheered and bonded over CU.
That 1982 football game, our only win that year, made a lasting impression on me. The students care more than the Administration seems to think about our sports teams. Especially the football team. People are looking for reasons to cheer for alma mater, to make it part of their lives before and after graduation.
One day perhaps we will have an Administration that figures this stuff out.
Jake-
Great post and thanks for reminiscing about the 1988 Columbia-Princeton Homecoming game.
This was one of the greatest days in my life....without question.
Keep up your fight Jake.
Matt Sodl
Class of 1988
1988 was already important because our daughter was a CU freshman. With other family in tow we stopped at the campus to bring her to the game with us. We had hope, but no one really knew when or if The Streak would end. As the game ended and pandemonium broke out, I ran out on the field to celebrate with the crowd. The goal posts were coming down...even now I choke up as I think about it.
Someone in my group snapped a photo I still have of me yelling like a lunatic. On the way home we stopped at a few shops for the makings of a festive dinner including champagne and pastries. The following Saturday we drove to the Yale Bowl where we lost in a decent effort but nobody cared because The Streak was over. A consolation after the game was the best garlic pizza in the world at Pepe's Pizza in New Haven.
During the game in the Yale Bowl, CU students were selling "I Was There" t-shirts. I still have mine, and I hope to wear it when we win the Ivy again. More likely I'll wear it to the grave.
Jake, while I share your frustration and have suffered far longer than you with administrative incompetence and worse, going back to the sale of part of Baker Field to build a community hospital, I don't know why Bollinger would actually want us to lose. Maybe he doesn't care if we win or lose, which is bad enough, but I don't know of any evidence that he actually wants us to lose, unless of course you are inferring that conclusion from the fact that he has kept Murphy on the payroll.
When Bollinger was at Michigan, he was a vocal antagonist of collegiate sports and their negative impact on the academic community.
Oh, I was there. I was there in 1983, when the streak began (although we didn't know it then), after beating Yale in New Haven. My friends in the CUMB told me, after a tie with Dartmouth at Giants' Stadium (our "home field" that year), that it was an okay season. Little did we know..and yet I attended virtually every game, home and away, through 1987, with plenty of nail-biters and steadfast devotion to alma mater and those Lions. I even conducted the band at Princeton when the Streak became our national burden (and some kids from Northwestern were there to happily pass it on to Columbia!), which was a heartbreaking game for more reasons than that.
So of course, of course! I would be at Homecoming in 1988 , wearing my Columbia rain poncho and my heart on my sleeve. It was amazing to see the stands fill up in the second half, as reluctant students figured they should make the trip to Baker Field, just in case.
And then it was unbelievable. On the field, pandemonium. Goal posts down. Screaming and singing. The band traditionally plays at the lion statue after a win, but only some older alumni could remind us of such details.
We played and played, all around Baker Field, and somehow got one of the goalposts, which we hoisted on our shoulders and carried 100 blocks back to campus. Even with as many of us as there were, it was extremely heavy. We stopped for fries and beers and to switch arms.
113th street was a blur. We gathered in Furnald to watch some of the coverage on ESPN, had Broadway shakes at Tom's (some things never change, win or lose!), and got the Sunday Times around 9 to see, "Columbia Wins! That's right, wins!" as the headline. What a day for the whole Columbia family. I attended the rest of the home season and the away game at Yale that year, too.
Plus many more games over the years through 2003, when I moved overseas. Saturdays at Baker Field will remain with me always.
25 years later, I still have a t-shirt with the image of Monday's Spectator front page "WE WIN!!"
And 25 years later, I smirk to see Jason Garrett on TV. Just one of life's little ironic pleasures.
I too was their from 84-87 with the band and saw the almost victories against Dartmouth and Brown in 87, and drove to Harvard and Penn in the year after I graduated (88) on the hope of seeing a win. The win against Brown was even more enjoyable that year as it was a rout. After 25 years the victory is much appreciated . The athletic department should honor the athletes who suffered through the streak and made us better for it. I still go to 1 or 2 games a year as my son likes going .
Barry (En 88)
It is a worthy victory but the most important win of CU's history was the historic 1934 Rose Bowl 7-0 victory over Stanford. That was the peak of CU football power!
Jake, here's a perspective from the other (Princeton) side that you might enjoy. When the Columbia game arrived with the streak still intact, I hoped that it wouldn't end against us because that would be, well, embarrassing.
Late Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in a very crowded bar with an obscured view of the one television mounted in the corner near the ceiling. I happened to glance at the screen at the precise moment when I could read "Prince" in the upper row and "Col" in the lower row but both scores were obscured. Immediately, I knew the gravity of the situation. There was only one reason the Prince/Col score would be on a national broadcast.
I immediately checked my voicemail and, sure enough, the heckling messages were already starting to stream in. There would be many more over the next few days.
I'm glad you guys got the monkey off your back but couldn't you have waited a week to build the suspense? Mazel tov.
Stories like Cathy Webster's are the reason we continue to follow the columbia football program. Thank you for sharing.
Matt Sodl
below is an article on Chip Kelly's offense. i put it here because of the similarities in regards to the hadn a coach is dealt.
This was Chip Kelly's offense in the first game of the season, the one the new Eagles head coach made famous at the University of Oregon. It was wild. It was intriguing. It was 26-7 by halftime.
And we really haven't seen it since.
The Kelly attack is predicated on being up-tempo. Since he joined the Eagles, even his pre-season practices moved at a fast pace. Pundits wondered if it could really succeed on the NFL level, where defensive coordinators have a way of solving every puzzle an offense throws at them.
But you can't solve what you don't get. The pedal was to the metal in the first 30 minutes of the season. Kelly got off the gas in the second half of that Washington game. He hasn't really stepped back on it since.
In the 4½ games following that 30 minutes, the Eagles' offense has seemed deliberate for a no-huddle look. It's not like they have Peyton Manning playing quarterback back there changing plans on the fly, moving people around perfectly to fit the moment. It's clear Michael Vick and last week Nick Foles are still in the process of figuring it all out. We know by the results of many plays - especially many plays in the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3 - it has been quite the mystery at times.
This offense has been anything but the blur Eagles fans thought they would see. It doesn't even resemble the quick pace with which the season began. This isn't Kelly-ball. What the heck is this?
Actually, I'm here to tell you what they're seeing is pretty darn good coaching.
This is Kelly adapting to the hand he's been dealt.
Some obits on AD page; mostly coaches, a doc and some players but few recently. Perhaps the policy has changed.
Re Chip Kelly and the Eagles: I was at last Sunday's game. The Giants are my second football passion. I have been a season ticket holder for years. Here are the facts of football life as I see it. The Eagles have better personnel than the Giants. Tom Coughlin is a good enough coach to have a lifetime winning record and has taken two teams to the playoffs, including an expansion team. He has won two Super Bowls. Yet he has been blown out all year. That is the hand he has been dealt. He doesn't have the players anymore. As Greg A said in a recent post, coaches are presumed to play their best players. In the strongest programs it is a rare freshman who plays. Coaches don't like to play freshmen for a reason. That is why Jeff Adams, later a three time first team All Ivy, never saw the field his freshman year. So whatever you think of Mangurian as a coach, I don't think he is playing so many first and second year players because he is trying to make a point. I think he has concluded that the junior and senior classes, Norries' last two recruiting classes lacked quality depth. I don't have inside information on the hiring process and am not a fan of Murphy's, but I think Mangurian gets a pass for this year. My takeaway is that it is better for the next seven weeks, for the sake of the players and their families, to lay off some of the really vicious comments which have permeated this blog lately.
Re Old Lion: the proof of Bollinger's desires for football
defeat is in his actions, or to be more precise, his inaction. when he arrived he mollified alums by saying he'd end the "culture of losing." What has he done about it?
He's also a fool. He wants to enhance academics? so he does it by suing in every court for affirmative action, which debases learning and hurts the people he claims to want to help,
Let us put aside the typical Columbia-Upper-West-Side snarkitude and appreciate what we have in Pete and Dianne.
Pete and Dianne have made us the envy of the rest of the Ivy League with their blue-sky thinking and cutting-edge approach. If Pete is driven from Columbia by a small cabal of ungrateful fans who can't see past that "losing" thing, no Ivy coach's job, including Bagnoli and Murphy, will be safe. The competition among the Ivies to land Pete will be brutal. The resulting bitterness could poison Ivy athletics for a generation.
We all know that Dianne is destined for a far grander stage than the Columbia athletic department. Let us appreciate this national treasure while we still have her.
CU lost two star athletes by playing an opponent which has athletic scholarships and therefore larger and more talented football players. The Georgia State's shouldn't play the Alabama's of the world as the Columbia's shouldn't play the Fordham's. You can destroy a team's morale for the year by getting routed by someone you can't compete against.
Maybe one solution to the problem is to bring in two or three additional higher academic non-athletic scholarship programs into the Ivy League. Columbia stopped scheduling Army and Navy in the 1950's after the Ivy League was formed. It made no sense to get slaughtered and demoralized then and it makes no sense now.
No matter how much we like or dislike Mangurian, what coach in his right mind would want his team to feel demoralized? Just so hard for me to believe that he accepts this. Same with Diane, how can she not see how hard this team works at trying to get better, strength training , early morning practices etc. how can she accept this. It's really sad to watch this happeni to these kids.
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