One of the greatest names in Ivy football history died last week.
Carm Cozza was the head coach of the Yale Bulldogs from 1965 through 1996, where he had a 179-119-5 record and still is the winningest coach in Ivy history.
Columbia Football was mostly not competitive during Cozza's entire tenure, but there were some key games the Lions and Elis played against each other.
It started with Cozza's first game against the Lions in 1965. Columbia hosted the game that became a showcase for the great flanker Roger Dennis '66. Dennis scored two spectacular TD's in a 21-7 Lion win. It would be Columbia's only Ivy win of the season that ended with a 2-7 record. Yale finished 3-6.
Three years later, Cozza's Elis were the elite team in the Ivies and cruising to what looked like a perfect season. But Cozza was reportedly staying up late at night worrying about Columbia QB Marty Domres '69 leading up to their week four game in New Haven. But Cozza needn't have worried, as the muddy Yale Bowl slowed down the CU receivers en route to a 29-7 Bulldog win.
It took another three years before the two teams played another meaningful game. In 1971 at Baker Field, the Lions pulled out a shocking 15-14 win on their way to a 7-2 season.
You could make the argument that none of the remaining 25 games Cozza would coach against Columbia would really matter much to Yale in the big picture. But the fact that the Lions defeated the Elis in each of the last three games Yale played against Columbia certainly meant a lot to Lion fans.
Cozza's overall record and now legend is one of those things many of us who worked so hard to get Columbia Football back to relevance clung to over the years. We knew that a great coach can make a difference, even when everyone seemed to be telling us that no coach could turn Columbia around.
Al Bagnoli is already in the conversation as someone who possibly matches and could one day surpass Cozza's accomplishments. Some would argue that by achieving success at two Ivy schools, he already has.
But the bottom line is Cozza set a modern standard of excellence for this sport.
He will be missed.
5 comments:
Thanks, Jake. AS I've mentioned on FB, Carm had a big influence on me. I was the ball boy (the Bowl was in my backyard) from 1979-1984.
If my memory serves me right, the last game that wasn't a loss before the beginning of The Streak was a 1983 tie at the Bowl. I remember that game as an exciting back-and-forth struggle. How many other people were at both games that book ended the Streak?
I checked Wikipedia. Columbia won the 1983 game, but a tie that season started a 47 game winless streak (as opposed to a 44 game losing streak).
Jake, a friend of mine who played for Yale during the Domres years told me recently that Cozza always worked his team extra-hard before the Columbia game because he was always afraid that Marty would throw for 400 yards. As good as Hill was for us, I can only imagine what Marty Domres would done if he had guys like Wainwright and Smith (or Roger Dennis,for that matter) as receivers.
I also was at the Yale Bowl in 1983 to see the Lions defeat the Bulldogs, the game that preceded the beginning of the infamous 44-game losing streak.
I also was at Wein Stadium to see Columbia end that losing streak by beating Princeton 16-13.
(It should also remembered that on that Princeton team Columbia defeated were the three Garrett brothers, all of whom had been members of the Columbia football team, but transferred to Princeton en masse after Columbia fired their father, who had been Columbia's Head Coach for only one season. Coach Garrett, after his team had blown a 17-0 halftime lead against Harvard in the first game of the season, had called Columbia's players "drug-addicted losers." For that reason, Coach Garrett was fired.)
I went crazy after this tremendous victory. The students rushed the field and tore down the goal posts.
The best news, of course, is that we now have a real football team, thanks to alumni advocates, the administration, Peter Pilling, Coach Bagnoli and his staff, and the high-quality commits we are attracting each year.
Thanks, Jake, for remembering Roger Dennis in your blog. He was a fantastic receiver.
I recall a home game we were losing. Archie Roberts tossed a pass about 35 yards downfield to Roger, who beat his man for around a 45-50 yard TD. It was called back.
The next play was the same one, except 5 yards longer (the penalty) for another TD. Also called back.
Finally, on the 3rd try, Roger beats his man again, Archie connects, and we finally score.
Rog sneaks down from Ithaca every now and again to catch a game.
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