Rain Delay

It's still storming on Long Island


The Empire Challenge game, featuring incoming Columbia freshman OL Carl Constant, was originally scheduled for tonight but bad thunderstorms have forced the organizers to move it to Friday night. I hope to get a good look at Constant who was a late addition to our incoming freshmen class and looks like he was worth the wait.

While you're all waiting for that report, check out the top 100 moments in College Football history as voted by the folks at ESPN So far they have Columbia's Rose Bowl win in there, but I fear they may omit the 1947 win over Army.

I've written a number of posts in the past about the top 20 or so Columbia games of the past 20-25 years, but an all-time list would be very tough. Off the top of my head I'd put the Rose Bowl game at #1, the 1947 win over Army at #2, and the Ivy-championship clinching win over Penn in 1961 at #3. I'll try to make a top 10 Columbia football games of all-time, (1870-2006), in the coming weeks. I'd be happy to take your nominations in the comments section.

Keep Tad Crawford in your thoughts tonight as he takes the field for the BC Lions in their regular season opener at Toronto. You can catch the game audio online on the Team 1040 web site.

The CFL is one thing, but now there's another foreign pro league for Ivy athletes who aren't quite ready for the major leagues in the U.S.

Field Turf for the Soccer Stadium

This is a nice development for the soccer stadium, especially coming on the heels of the women winning the Ivy title. All of us are also hoping for the Columbia men's team to return to its rightful place atop the league.

One of the big donors to the project was the the Old Blue Rugby Foundation, of whom I first wrote a few days ago. These guys are serious supporters of not just Columbia athletics, but of athletics in general.


Here's a story about a kid recruited by a lot of Ivies who's going to take his chances and try to walk on at Rutgers. He specifically mentions how financial concerns were a big part of his decision to eschew the Ivies and the Patriot League. I think this is an issue that keeps just as many of the potential "blue chip" recruits away as grades and the perceived lower level of competition of the league do.

And former Harvard and pro-wrestling star, (now that's a weird combo), Chris Nowinski is still working hard to publicize the concussion problems in organized football. He makes a lot of good points.