Carl Constant is a big all-star offensive lineman from NYC Catholic school powerhouse Saint Francis Prep... what's not to like?
The big news is we have a new name on the CU football roster, and it's incoming frosh Carl Constant, an All Catholic League offensive lineman from Uniondale, NY (just minutes from my current home of Bellmore, NY on Long Island), with great size at 6-3 and 285 pounds, (his playing weight in high school actually got up as high as 298).
Constant travelled to nearby Fresh Meadows, Queens to play at St. Francis Prep. The NYC-area Catholic High School Football League is not as strong as many of the Catholic leagues in the Midwest and even Southern California, but a very good number of top-notch individual players have come from the CHSFL over the years. And a first-team all-star at right tackle of his size in almost any league is great prospect.
A commenter pointed out that Constant was one of 800 National Achievement Scholarship Awards for outstanding black students. A guy like that makes Ivy admissions committees drool.
And it would be nice to have a real New York City high school product eventually become a leader on the team again... it's been a long time. John Witkowski coming out of Lindenhurst High School in Eastern Suffolk County Long Island may have been the last truly local leader here.
I'm not sure why it took so long for him to announce his intentions to come to Columbia, but I suppose it's possible he originally considered going somewhere else and it didn't work out. Perhaps we'll find out before the season starts. I'd be happy to hear any of your thoughts on this... especially if you have information showing that Constant was slated to start for USC this season, but decided he needed to go to a real school!
Of course, he is an offensive lineman, so don't expect to see him on the field this season. But he should make a great impact in practice and on our overall depth.
And this is REALLY great news because he is scheduled to play in the CU football roster, Empire Challenge NYC vs. Long Island All-Star game on June 28th at Hofstra's Shuart Stadium, which is also just a few minutes away from my home. I wasn't going to go to the game originally when incoming Penn frosh Brian Giesecke was the only pre-Ivy player on either roster, but now he's no longer on the Long Island team for some reason. Now I will make every effort to go to the game and check out a very promising future Lion.
Also, the Columbia roster now has bios on all but two of our 103 players, so you can catch up on some of your reading now.
Austin Knowlin is Columbia's 3rd-ever Ivy Rookie of the Year (CREDIT: Columbia Athletics Dept.)
In addition to the Bushnell Cup for the Ivy player of the year, the league has given out an Ivy Rookie of the Year award every year since 1981. Not including last year, of the 25 men who have won rookie of the year, just five eventually became players of the year as well. Cornell running back Derrick Harmon was the first to do it, grabbing the initial rookie of the year award in 1981 and then taking the Bushnell Cup in 1983.
The other four double-winners are:
Rich Comizio, RB Penn (ROY in 1984, POY in 1986)
Jay Fieldler, QB Dartmouth (ROY in 1991, POY in 1992)
Pat Goodwille, LB Penn (ROY in 1992, POY in 1994)
Sean Morey, WR Brown (ROY in 1995, POY in 1997)
Three Columbia players have now won the rookie of the year award. Running back Solomon Johnson took the award in 1988, but injuries and overall team woes prevented him from doing much in his next two seasons. Johnson had great speed, but the offensive line during most of his years was not the best, and the team was just coming off the record losing streak.
The Lions all-time leading rusher Jonathan Reese won rookie of the year in 1998, and he had a monster junior year in 2000, but Columbia never had a winning record in Reese's years and that doomed his Bushnell Cup chances more than anything else.
And now we have WR Austin Knowlin with three more seasons to try to make the jump from rookie of the year to MVP. Only two wide receivers have ever won the Bushnell Cup, and if Columbia has a winning record this year I think the coaches will tend to vote for QB Craig Hormann, but Knowlin still has a great shot to take the top honors.
Lee Bollinger is on the right side on an important issue, and he did it fast
Not related to sports, but I like this fast action by Columbia President Lee Bollinger on a ridiculous boycott attempt by British academics. If he acted this quickly and correctly on sports issues, we would have been Ivy Champs long ago.
posted by Jake @ 7:22:00 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Terrific article, Jake. Very interesting and informative. However, contrary to your statement, I do believe that the incoming offensive linemen have a very good chance of seeing significant playing time this fall as there is very little depth and experience on the offensive line. Indeed, that would appear to be the primary reason for the important late additions of such outstanding offensive line prospects as Tim Skalak, Ben Gaston, Dan Cohen and Carl Constant. Two or three of those newcomers, as well as Brian Kipp, Ben Britzius, and one or two others, could easily make the two-deep. These guys are important recruits and I hope enter Columbia ready to play. Someone once said that to be a truly outstanding offensive lineman in the Ivy League you must remember to lift weights, eat lots of spaghetti, go over 290 pounds, and block like hell.
My law firm once had a former Cornell OL who was a three year starter at offensive guard. His team won the League title one year (whenever in the late 80s/early 90s that Cornell wwon the league). He was about 6'6" but probably no more than 220 pounds (ran marathons, etc). He said that he played at 280-290. A lot of OLs who do well in the Ivies have to add weight to be effective. We can recruit good natural athletes to play on the OL but they don't have the body mass to play D1. A good example is Ralph DeBernardo, who will be a great tackle if he can get up to around 285/290 without losing speed and endurance. Constant seems to have the type of road grader ready for prime time body to make a contribution right off the bat. This is a huge "get" for us. Asia Sunset, eat your heart out!
It would be great if some of these freshmen can jump into game situations and make an impact this year... but just remember this is really not typical. Since one of you mentioned Ralph DeBernardo, I urge you to go back a couple of months and read the interview I did with him where he talks about how he was really unprepared to play as a freshman. But DeBernardo did get some good "battlefield experience" out of it and that will make him that much better for his remaining two years on the team.
But if you want to celebrate now, please do. Just two years after we were at worse than a "fire sale" level with our offensive line, we now seem to have a very deep group of starters, backups, and freshmen prospects. If we can keep these guys on the squad, we will see a serious upgrade in wins. Remember, out top priority for 2007 has to be an improvement in the running game. That starts with the boys up front.
If we run we control the clock, we give the "D" a chance to rest, and hopefully slow the oppositions pass rush. Somehow it always begins with a good offensive line.
The word is that we have an incoming running back who was heavily recruited at one point by Stanford. Any info?
Leon Ivery?
I'm not sure, but I would assume that would be Leon Ivery out of the Menlo School in Palo Alto. Ivery was a D-IA prospect until he suffered some bone spurs in his foot. Those spurs came back at the end of his senior year, but I think he will be okay to play for us by this summer. Columbia is betting on 3 players who were big program prospects before injuries. They are Ivery, Nico Gutierez and Grant Jefferson who is a sophomore. If even one of them delivers, it would be great.
Sharkey went to St Francis Prep-not sure about Billy McGee...also Pete Murphy-our infamous punter( Coach Garrett target post Harvard game 1985) who was also an excellent pitcher and was in the Pirates organization for a number of years.
Yes, I'm just about to post that info about Sharkey, McGee and Murphy... you beat me to the punch!
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