(thanks to Rich Forzani '66)
These results are from the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. It is a very intense ratings system.For the past nine years, Columbia’s sports team achievement rating compared specifically to the Ivy League is as follows:(PS…8th place is last place)’04 –’05 6th place’05 –’06 8th place’06 –’07 5th place’07 –’08 8th place’08 –’09 8th place’09 –’10 8th place’10 –’11 8th place’11 –’12 7th place’12 –’13 6th placeI believe this is a stunning indictment of the AD performance record. Since taking office, Columbia has come in dead last 5 out of 8 years, and has never finished in the top 50%. She has averaged in the past nine years a 7thplace finish out of 8.The “achievement”, or lack of it, to be attributed to the AD office is the stunning feat of moving up 2 positions since ’10 – ’11 from last to 6th. Hardly a legacy to be proud of after nine years.On Wall Street, this is known as a “dead cat bounce”, since even the worst of programs occasionally beats out someone.
4 comments:
Does this account for Columbia having the fewest sports in the Ivy? Not to defend Herr Murphy but it could be the reason we can't get above 6th these days. It's still a sad commentary on her "leadership."
Not in the context of the "we have improved claim" by Bollinger. No matter how many sports we play at CU, we're still winning the same low number of titles as we always have. No change. But the real tests are football and men's basketball and we're rock bottom there with NO Ivy winning records even ONCE in Murphy's tenure.
I agree that the Director's Cup is by far the most fair and comprehensive way to judge the success of entire athletic programs. And limiting to just the Ivies is being very generous given the large gaps between schools -- for example, from the final 2012-13 standings:
http://thedirectorscup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/June27release.pdf
Princeton (#1 in the Ivy) was #35 overall, Columbia (#6 Ivy) was #81 overall.
I found Bollinger's letter very odd indeed -- he must have had Athletics play with the stats until they could come up with something, anything that looked good. I imagine the conversation went something like this:
How many of our teams won titles last year? Oh, not good.
Ok, how many were second place? Oh, never mind.
Ok, how many had winning seasons? No? Winning Ivy seasons? Not that either?
Fine. Try: how many in the top 3 of the Ivies? Oh, 12 out of 31? Let's see, chance of finishing in top 3 in an eight team league is 37.5%, and 12 out of 31 is 38.7%, wow, your stellar performance means we beat the average by 1.2%! Great, I'll just gloss over that in the letter in a way that sounds impressive. Thanks.
Nice work, Tiger. It's egregious that Bollinger put his name to such a piece of garbage.
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