Outside Reviews WORK

As we are now just 10 days away from having vacancies at both the head football coaching and athletic director positions, it is the perfect time to remind everyone that what Columbia desperately needs is an outside review of its football program and athletics department overall.

The administration has resisted this suggestion vehemently and has given us everything from anger to ridicule in response.

I believe the biggest reasons why are:

1) President Lee Bollinger truly does not care about having a successful athletics program at Columbia and,

2) Bill Campbell sees the football program as a private hobby that serves as a social activity for him. It's nice if we win and he certainly wants us to, but most important to him is that he maintain control with no outsiders getting in without his specific okay.

The result? 0-19, and soon to be 0-21.

Outside sports consulting groups DO help and it's a shocking fact that no such group has ever done a major review of CU Athletics considering our track record.

Proof that these groups can help is easy to find up in Hanover, New Hampshire where the Dartmouth Big Green are now an elite Ivy football team after going 0-10 in 2008.

This is from an article in the Valley News published last month:

"Columbia was 2-8 overall in 2008 and tied for sixth place in the Ancient Eight, one of its victories a 21-13 defeat of visiting Dartmouth. Fourth-year Lions coach Norries Wilson would guide his team to a 4-6 mark and a fourth-place Ivy finish the next season, but its loss in Hanover snapped a Big Green losing streak at 17 games and was something of a turning point for both teams.

Before that 2009 campaign, Rick Taylor, the onetime Boston University football coach and Northwestern athletic director, conducted an external review of the Dartmouth football program, which subsequently benefitted from improved facilities, better relations with the admissions department, increased coaching salaries and fundraising and the arrival of President Jim Yong Kim, an enthusiastic backer of sports in general and football in particular. Harry Sheehy succeeded Harper as athletic director in 2010, and his arrival gave the department long-term direction.

Since its win over Columbia in 2009, Dartmouth has gone 28-21, while the Lions are 10-39. Wilson was fired after going 1-9 in 2011 and 17-43 overall in five seasons. He was the Lions’ 10th consecutive coach, dating back to 1930, to leave with a losing record. Only one man in that group, Lou Little (1930-56), posted a winning percentage better than .315."

Nothing that I write about or groups like CAEC push for is meant to gain power or notoriety for ourselves. We just want Columbia to have a respectable athletic program and especially a competitive football team. 

The more I see how much insular cronyism has infected this department, the more I understand why no outside consulting group has ever been called upon to address the problems. 

You see, the Columbia Athletic Department's entire raison d'etre is to EXCLUDE outsiders, no matter how bad the results. 

This has to stop now. The same people who scoff at our suggestions and treat us with enormous disrespect are also asking us for money day in and day out. We indeed do have a right to demand better and, specifically, demand that the outside review of the department commence immediately.

Currently, the department is using the "cone of silence" policy and not letting us know a thing about the progress of the A.D. hiring process or how it intends to jettison Mangurian in 10 days. 

I think emails and calls to new Board of Trustees Chair Jonathan Schiller are in order at this time.