A Brown fan on the VOY Ivy Sports chat board did all fans a great favor earlier this week when he
posted the link to this excellent piece about the Brown football team that ended up the 1976
season as surprise Ivy Co-Champs, (and in my book, the only REAL champs that
year because they beat the team they “tied” for the title –Yale- by a 14-6
score).
What makes the piece so important for Columbia fans is that then-Brown
Head Coach John Anderson successfully turned around a perennial loser, and a program
that had considerable less grand history behind it than Columbia.
In our never ending quest for a turnaround at CU, these
kinds of stories are inspiring. Unfortunately, since the article doesn’t have
too many details about HOW Anderson performed his miracles, it’s not
necessarily very instructive.
But as I have written many times on this blog, Brown is
ALWAYS the answer to those who say Columbia can’t turn it around. If the Bears
can do it with their weak fan base, poor facilities, etc, then Columbia can and
SHOULD do it too.
In other words, don’t accept any EXCUSES for why Columbia
hasn’t had a winning season since 1996 or won an Ivy title since 1961… and
especially don’t take any excuses from someone in the athletic department who
is in the midst of asking you for money.
More Vintage Shots
Speaking of Columbia’s grand history, I recently picked up
another vintage CU football program. This one is from the October 30, 1948 game
at Baker Field against Cornell. (click all pictures to enlarge)
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The most dominating presence in this program is then-university President Dwight Eisenhower, as the school's pride in having him as its leaders oozes from several pages.
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This next shot will likely enrage many older fans as they see at the top the expansive tailgating and parking space that used to be available at the old Baker Field before the sale of much of that land to the Allen Pavilion hospital facility.
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You don't see scorecards in football programs anymore. That's a shame. You also don't see cigarette ads in sports programs anymore, which I suppose is not such a shame.
Finally, considering this is a 1948 program I was surprised by the fact that it contained 2-3 different ads for television sets. I didn't think they were really anything but a super luxury item until about 1950 or so. But perhaps the advertisers believed the fans at Ivy football games were the kind of people most likely to buy such fare.
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2 comments:
I regard the Cole/Sovern sale of property for the Allen Pavilion as the greatest act of internal subversion in the history of our athletic program. The tragedy is that the land just east of Broadway would have been even more suitable for a community hospital. I saw Jonathan Cole at a restaurant by Lincoln Center this Spring and was sorely tempted to ask him what was going on in his head at the time.
Jake, I can't make out much in the tailgating picture, but I do recall that the Allen Pavilion corner was not where much parking was. Most of it was on the present lot, the softball field, the field hockey field, and without the stands, part of the current soccer stadium. A big chunk of the parking area was a practice field for football, and where the fresh played their games on Fridays. Always wondered what it what like using the fieldmafter a rainy Saturday, with cars tearing up the turf and leaving ruts. But then, we always entered through the gate on 218th.
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