Sorry to ruin your breakfast...
Penn Spring
Penn Spring
It wasn't a real game but the Philadelphia Daily News was pretty impressed with the Quakers' offense in the situational "game" Sunday.
For Columbia fans like me who watch our recruiting battles with Penn in New Jersey very carefully, the name of rising sophomore Spencer Kulcsar should stand out. Kulcsar was a top RB at Bergen Catholic, a school that routinely sends its top Ivy recruits to Penn first and Columbia second.
Kulcsar scored two TD's Sunday.
Kulcsar took over from Columbia's Nick Gerst as Bergen's top runner in 2009 and 2010, before being replace after graduation by Mike Gerst in last year.
It looks like this fall we'll see which former Bergen rusher is the best player in the college ranks when the Lions visit Franklin Field on October 13th.
Another name that should jump out of this report on the "game" is Ryan Mitchell, the WR who had a standout game against the Lions last fall. Mitchell is very much back for more action in 2012 and looks like he's still a speed burner at the position.
I picked Penn to win the Ivies last season and make it three titles in a row, but the offense and defense sputtered at times as the Quakers finished a very disappointing 5-5 on the season. And anyone who saw Columbia do everything in its power to give the game away to Penn at Homecoming last year could tell just how far the Quakers had fallen.
But it's hard to believe they'll stay down. Al Bagnoli is still the best, if not the most lovable coach in the Ivies. And he has bounced back before.
Oh, and don't be surprised if in a month or so we learn of a big transfer coming Penn's way.
Mad Monday
Last night's NCAA men's basketball game was filled with excitement and the title game always gets the ratings all the network and NCAA execs smiling. And so, Kentucky won another national title.
But these games, and these teams filled with "one and done" players are the worst examples of what college sports should be all about. And the myriad of administrators who seek to eradicate serious athletics on our campuses use these sports factory schools like Kentucky and Kansas as ammunition against the very different kinds of programs in our Ivy schools.
And with John Calipari as the coach of the Wildcats, the chances this championship will have to be vacated because of NCAA violations are at least 50/50.
How far we've come from the days of Bill Bradley at Princeton when we saw not only Ivy players who were focused on their educations, but all players in all conferences were doing the same thing.
Consider someone like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who scored a perfect 4.0 GPA all four years at UCLA.
Or even a Bill Walton, who may not have been as studious as Kareem but he was certainly involved in the student activism of the time and a recognizable figure off the court as well.
"One and done" athletes tarnish the "scholar" part of the "scholar-athlete" equation and give everyone who plays college sports a bad name.
Sticker Shock
My friend Bruce Wood over at Big Green Alert wrote yesterday about the massive tuition costs he's facing now that the second of his two kids is about to start college. It was enough for him to rethink the blogging and freelance writing life and search for a real full-time gig.
It's just the latest evidence for me that college tuition has become a classic bubble that will finally burst sometime in the next ten years. With student loans outstanding now at $1 trillion in America and even ELDERLY AMERICANS on the hook for billions, this just isn't sustainable.
But before these colleges, especially the Ivy colleges, do what's necessary to really cut the root sources of the costs by eliminating tenure, etc. -- you can be sure they'll come after athletics first and come after it hard.
At first, the results will be a strong fundraising effort by Columbia's most loyal alums, who happen to be ex-athletes and the sports teams' fans.
But after a while, the hostile attitude from the administration will take its toll. Increased donations will only go so far when recruited athletes visit our campuses and see nothing that resembles a warm greeting from the deans or the faculty.
3 comments:
Jake, please, enough about Penn. A situational scrimmage in which Penn's offense outplays its defense being touted by a Philly sportswriter tells me only one thing, that Philly papers are better at covering Penn than our wretched home town papers are at covering Columbia. And as far as recruiting, we got the younger Gerst over strong opposition by Penn.
Philly paper bias aside, I'm fully expecting Penn to be in the hunt for the title this season. They bring back a lot of talent on offense. They may not score as many points as say, Cornell, but they will be much more balanced than the Big Red and have better ball-control and TOP. Penn will be a challenge for every Ivy in 2012.
Jake, I agree with the one and done athlete (very rarely a student before athlete in these cases)tarnishing the college game. The blame lies solely with the NBA and the NBA Player's Association. The NFL and MLB have slightly different qualifications (3 years from high school graduation class, although baseball can draft and sign right after high school, and there are a few NCAA football player being a pro in baseball in the summer and a collegiate athlete in football, which is very strange that the NCAA allows this in any sport). The NCAA only can punish those schools that practice the one and done based upon the rules in place (see CT basketball). Until the NBA faces this issue, and it is not necessarily an issue for them, nothing will change.
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