Farewell to a Faithful Lion

This one really hurts...

Our friend and probably the #1 Lion football fan in the world, Frank Furillo '70 passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer. 

Frank came to Columbia after graduating from Reading Catholic HS in Pennsylvania, (now folded into Berks Catholic HS), and a post-graduate year at the Hun School. 

In addition to the many tailgates he graciously hosted, Frank also sent out creative emails with tons of great Lion football history and pictures. 

Frank was the glue that kept many former players and fans together, and he was especially excited when Jon Poppe, son of his dear friend Bill Poppe '70 was named head coach. 

On a personal note, Frank was always very kind and supportive to me. That includes the times when I was under the gun. 

To say I'm going to miss him, his emails, and especially seeing him at the games is a big understatement. I can only imagine how his lifelong friends and former teammates feel. 

I have learned that there is a plan in place to honor Frank at the Princeton game this fall on October 5th. 

I urge all of those friends and teammates to comment here: 

 

Some Quick Shout Outs

The Girls are Alright

Of course the biggest sports news on Columbia's campus this year has been the spectacular women's basketball team and its berth into the NCAA Tournament.

Tonight is the big play-in game against Vanderbilt, and I'm betting most of the readers here will be glued to the game. 

The women's team success is not totally unrelated to football, as I believe Athletic Director Peter Pilling hired new football head coach John Poppe in hopes that he would follow in the model set out by women's hoops head coach Megan Griffith. I believe the two of them are even personal friends. 

Subway Save

Getting back to football, late last month during the teams' weight room preps for spring practice, rising junior WR Edan Stagg was involved in the rescue of local man who was trapped between the subway car and the gap in the platform at the 215th Street Subway station. The conductors were oblivious to the situation, but Stagg alerted them as he worked to extricate the man and keep the train car doors from closing. 

Stagg has NOT been seeking any publicity for this heroic act, so I kept it a little quiet for these last few weeks. But I think it's okay to give him credit for it now. 

Big Spring Practice Question

I'll do a longer form preview of spring practice in the coming days. But I think the big question is who will take the most snaps at QB. As part of that question I am also unsure if Northwestern transfer QB Cole Freeman is already taking classes and if so, does that mean he can participate in spring practice?

Brave Man of the North 

Back to the shout outs: Finally, I want to acknowledge the news out of Hanover that the great Bruce Wood of Big Green Alert announced that he will be ending his extensive paid-site coverage of Dartmouth Football for a number of logistical and personal reasons. He will, however, still be frequently updating his free blog.

Bruce has quite clearly been the best journalist covering Ivy League Football for five decades. I have also been really grateful for his encouragement and friendship. 

 

More Harvard Angst

The latest online edition of Harvard Magazine  continues the recent hand-wringing in Cambridge over the hiring of Andrew Aurich as the new football head coach. 

It also contains this gem of a comment, Lions fans will love:

"On February 11, the Harvard Crimson published a scathing critique of the choice. Passed over (among others) were internal candidates Joel Lamb ’93, who was Murphy’s assistant head coach-quarterbacks, and Scott Larkee ’99, assistant head coach-defensive coordinator and linebackers. (Another onetime potential choice, former assistant coach and special teams wizard Jon Poppe, is the new head coach at Columbia. Watch for the Lions to get good, and fast.)"

We'll see.

Lion in Need

 

Recent Lion Football grad Bryan Bell-Anderson '23 has just this month been diagnosed with leukemia. 

A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help him and his family cope with the costs connected to his care.

We wish Bryan all the best. 

Eerily Reminiscent of...

Andrew Aurich

If you read Friday's Wall Street Journal piece on alumni anger over the hiring of Andrew Aurich as Harvard's new football head coach, you can't help but feel like instead of learning from Columbia's mistakes of the past, the Crimson are emulating them.

This is NOT to say Aurich won't be successful for Harvard. For all we know, this could be the beginning of a new dominant era in Cambridge. But the alumni complaints about his hiring and his previous experience are very reminiscent of a number of periods in Columbia Football history, and I don't think I need to lay that out in detail to prove my point. Anyone reading this blog over the years knows exactly what I'm talking about. 

If I had to guess why this has happened at Columbia, Harvard and many other schools over the years I'd say it's really indicative of an American university system that rarely feels any pressures of accountability. This is especially true for Ivy schools, who until this year almost never saw scrutiny from any groups other than the far right in this country. This habit of not being forthcoming about the hiring process was inevitably going to spread to athletics, and it has. 

If Harvard had a fan blog, I wonder how nasty the anonymous comments would be! 

The good news is that this story proves you don't have to be the fan of a program going on 63 years without a championship to be angry about being treated like garbage by your alma mater. I think Ivy Football has a long future ahead of it when even Harvard's alums/fans can get this angry. 

Based on what we learned in the WSJ article and what I've heard from others over the last few months, one winner in all of this is new Columbia Head Coach Jon Poppe. It seems like he got out of a vipers nest of assistants at Harvard determined to edge out their peers for the top job only to see all of them spurned. Poppe's "demotion" to head coach at a D-III school lasted just one year and now he's in a better position than everyone who stayed with the Crimson waiting Tim Murphy out. 

Well played Jon, here's hoping you have the same keen strategic skills for the Lions on the field this fall.