Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Sovern’s Take





Michael Sovern today

Former Columbia President Michael Sovern’s book, An Improbable Life, about his years at CU has been out since March, but I only learned about it yesterday from my just-delivered copy of Columbia Magazine.

Naturally, I bought it immediately to seek out any comments on football and athletics.

Naturally, there was very, very little.

But what Sovern did write was illuminating.

The highlight is that he squarely blames the infamous 44-game losing football losing streak on the firing of Head Coach Jim Garrett, which he stilled called “the right thing to do.”

Sovern writes that Garrett could not adapt from his NFL experience to the strictly amateur Ivy League.

This is a knock on Garrett that I’ve heard before, and remains a big part of the ethos in the administration. In fact, it was used as a justification not to hire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when he applied to be our head basketball coach in 2002.

Based on what we’re seeing with Pete Mangurian right now, I can see Sovern’s point... almost.

The difference is that 100% of the many alums I know who played for Garrett all tell me they completely believed in him and his system. They are quite sure the team would have started winning and winning consistently in a short time.

By contrast, almost all the current players I hear from either directly or indirectly either have no confidence in Mangurian or just aren’t sure right now. That's a big difference. 

So the question will always remain whether it was Garrett who wasn’t ready for Columbia, or if it was Columbia that wasn’t ready for Garrett. I suspect it was the latter.

Getting back to Sovern's book, it’s interesting that he openly admits that firing Garrett was going to sacrifice Columbia’s football future. He was half right about that. The strange thing is that while he acknowledges the fact that the team had hit hard times before Garrett’s arrival, he doesn’t note that the team already was in the middle of that record losing streak,  (we were winless in 13 straight coming into the 1985 season) and hadn’t had a winning record since 1971. 

There is no mention in the brief paragraphs about football of the decision to cut the land mass at Baker Field basically in half by building the hospital, (Allen Pavillion), on the north end of the site.  Few Columbia fans today realize that we used to have ample tailgating and parking room right on site.

As I read more of the book, I’ll have some more updates and thoughts but this should get us going for a while.

21 comments:

WOF said...

We all knew coach Garrett had what it takes to succeed and it was just a matter of time.

Most of also believed that it was the school that was not ready for coach. He often told us that he felt the school had reneged on some of the support and assurances that they had given him.

Anonymous said...

Garrett scuttled his own ship. I am willing to bet that lesson is not lost on Pete Mangurian. If nothing else, he has kept a lid on seriously damaging leaks that could derail his position there. Not an easy feat in the digital universe.

oldlion said...

My recollection is that things were so unstable that AD Al Paul personally started attending practice during the Garrett reign because there was concern that Garrett would lose it.

WOF said...

There is no argument that he sunk his own ship but I will always believe that the admin was OK when he said he was going to run the program like a big time school but then got cold feet when they realized what that really meant.

Also, he was way more upset with the Admin (and the lack of support from the AD) than he was with the players. He always represented to us that the school promised him much more than the support he received and he despised Al because he felt Al was covering his own backside.

One other anecdote: When the coaching staff showed up our first game with light blue T-shirts that simply said "COACH" across the front I was inclined to believe that the school was not ponying up for him like he expected.

Also, The admnin did not seek our opinion on the subject. We took a vote after he got fired and it was something like 55-6 in favor of keeping the coach.


RLB said...

He is the losing is like a drug man, right?

Anonymous said...

Maybe Garrett's experience is one of the missed watersheds of CU football. If the administration fulfilled their end, who knows what Garrett could have done with the program. No question his sons made an impact on the field (for a different team).

I remain, very truly yours, Richard Szathmary said...

Frankly, Jake, I'm pretty surprised that Sovern mentioned Columbia football (or even CU athletics) at all in his book. During my own years up at Baker Field, I certainly can't recall either Grayson Kirk or David Truman showing up to ever watch practice (though they may have been in the stands for Homecoming strictly on a pro forma basis).

President McGill, however, may have been an exception to the general rule of administration indifference. Despite his supposed "interim" status as CU Prexy (which lasted some 10 years), he always regularly popped up at the Psi U house, and not just for Homecoming, because his son was a Psi U. I recall both McGills as pretty nice guys, and I also distinctly recall President McGill showing up at 542 W114th for years even after his son had graduated. Those were, indeed, sort of, "the days," my friend.

RLB said...

So, it's accepted that the admin. didn't live up to its commitments? From the posts here, Garrett is the only source for that allegation.

Unknown said...
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Mr. Gelegenheit! said...

It was after the first game of the season, against Harvard, that Garrett called the players (or maybe just one player) "drug addicted loser(s)." What he meant to say was the players had become "addicted" to losing.

We all know that there is some psychological validity to that extreme metaphor. It's also true that Garrett lost his poise in expressing himself as he did. But at least he deeply gave a damn and was showing that the gloves were coming off. This could have been a turning point moment for the program.

I was not at that game but it must have been very difficult. I believe CU was ahead 17-0 at one point. The CU captain also broke his leg during the game and was of course lost for the season.

By itself, Garrett's remark doesn't seem like anywhere near a good reason to basically pull the plug on him after the first game. I've spoken with players from that team, and although one told me that Garrett was "not as charismatic as he thought he was" they also strongly believed he was going to turn things around.

Mitch S 68CC

oldlion said...

Had Walter Mondale won the 1984 election Mike Sovern would have been appointed to the US Supreme Court. Not sure if he covered his role in the "84 election in his book. I can tell you from personal experience that Sovern was at most an indifferent law professor who was much more into academic politics than he was into teaching. In his old age he is now teaching a course at the law school. Maybe he has gotten better at it. But as far as athletics, he and Cole were an unmitigated disaster. Their sale of a good chunk of Baker Field was a disgrace.

Big Dawg said...

In the article, Sovern states that when he took over, CU was broke. Could this have played a role in the sale of the land?

Also, in a bit of third-hand testimony, my former neighbor was an assistant to Garrett. He told me that the admin basically got scared after the "comment" because of political fallout and pre-emptively canned him to avoid further incidents. Al Paul was instrumental in this.

WOF said...

I don't know that he actually said "drug addicted losers"... Mitch is right in that he was intending to imply that we were addicted to losing and/or when adversity struck us on the field we all just clung to losing.

We were up 17-0 in the third quarter and lost 49-17! It was surreal to say the least.

I spoke with one of our former assistant ADs years later and was told that Garrett's relationship with the admin was so bad by the time of his blowup at the Harvard game (opening day), that was the final straw and his fate was sealed then.

RLB, if you played for the team back then it was not hard in the least to understand that the admin was not supporting us and that Al Paul, as nice a person as he could be, was not fighting for us, either.

It took Pops dying at the wheel while parked at Baker and Eddie B getting a knife pulled on him byone of the other bus drivers before the school grudgingly agreed to upgrade to campus coach as our transport back and forth to Baker.

Anonymous said...

Funny, the COACH t-shirt gets a mention here in an article that explains the Garrett incident.

He definitely meant the drug addiction comment metaphorically but the statement took a life of its own. Coach Garrett was just frustrated overall, certainly after the team blew a potential win over Harvard. I believe the athletic department did not give the program the necessary support. Maybe Ms. Murphy had a similar thought when she hired Mangurian. Now that better facilities and funding were in place, give someone a shot at it who has that NFL background. Just a guess.

Chick said...

Thank goodness Sovern didn't get on the Supreme Court or he would have declared football unconstitutional. I think Garrett really meant that the Admin was addicted to losing. That's obvious. Why else did Sovern sell off a big chunk of our modest athletics acreage? I don't remember the year but Camp Columbia in Connecticut, our football training camp, was sold too. Football went completely to hell in the 80s under Sovern. Naso was 4-43, Garrett 0-10, then McElreavy with a percentage like Naso's. The 44-game losing streak was spread across all three. Is there a statute of limitations or can we try Sovern for murdering our football program? And I don't believe I'm kidding.

oldlion said...

The more important question for athletics is who is going to succeed Bollinger, unless he is President for Life. Certainly his fund raising prowess and the overall stature of the university are pretty much at the highest level since the 1930s. Although he is much better than Sovern/Cole for athletics, I still think that we can and should demand more from him in the remaining years of his tenure. We desperately need a new campus physical fitness center, a new basketball arena, and most importantly a heightened sense that athletics are a critical part of the undergraduate experience.

Chick said...

Amen to that, Old Lion, BUT....his current contract extension ends in two years. I'd expect his run would end then, but I wouldn't expect him to accomplish or even launch those goals within two years. As you hinted, it's up to the "next" guy, and that sounds just like what is said about every new football coach.

Chick said...

Amen to that, Old Lion, BUT....his current contract extension ends in two years. I'd expect his run would end then, but I wouldn't expect him to accomplish or even launch those goals within two years. As you hinted, it's up to the "next" guy, and that sounds just like what is said about every new football coach.

oldlion said...

We just won the baseball championship, second year Ina row, by sweeping Dartmouth today.

alawicius said...

And we did it all practically without our star from last year, darned good. Here's to Joey's great return for his senior season, making us even better.

oldlion said...

two key guys, sophomores Paller and Thanopoulus, didn't play last year.