The Right Words at the Right Time

Much has already been said on the blogosphere about Columbia Coach Norries Wilson's angry rant in the post game news conference at Penn. You can hear the whole thing here: Wilson Audio Clip


There are couple of points no one should overlook after hearing the clip:

1) There were no obscenities and no personal threats. Anyone who wants to call this a "crazed rant" has never spent any time with Bill Parcells or Bobby Knight.

2) About 90% of what he said was true. There is no respect for Columbia football among the other Ivy teams, the Ivy officials, and even in much of the Columbia administration.

3) Penn's coaches are extremely aggressive recruiters who routinely bad-mouth Columbia to potential recruits. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with that exactly, it's also totally understandable for Columbia's coach to complain about that. And if there were Penn coaches coming over to the Columbia bench and bad-mouthing the team and calling it a "J.V. squad," as Wilson claims, then that's just stupid and worthy of a rant.

4) Ivy League officiating is erratic at best. Lots of teams get hosed week after week. The refs could use a few tirades once in a while from the Ivy coaches to keep the more honest.

5) As far as there being any conspiracy against Columbia in the Ivies, obviously that's something you can't prove and that came from anger on Wilson's part.

6) Most importantly, while Coach Wilson ranted he NEVER pointed the finger at his own players. In fact, he went out of his way to defend them and praise their efforts. This is in complete contrast to the self-defeating rants former Columbia Coach Jim Garrett was famous for 20 years ago. He called his players a bunch of "losers" and Wilson is warning anyone who refuses to respect his players that they'll have Hell to pay. Bravo!

If student life at Columbia is anything like it was when I was there in the late 80's/early 90's, then the players need to know that their coach is behind them all the way even if not many other people are. I think this incident will fire up this team the rest of the season.