Saturday, March 01, 2008

Roll 'Em!


ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT IVY LEAGUE FOOTBALL NOW COMPLETED


For Love & Honor Productions is proud to announce the completion of Eight: Ivy League Football and America, an original feature-length documentary film (TRT 96 minutes).

A world premiere, hosted by the Ivy Football Association, will be held on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at the Yale Club in New York City.

Eight, which tells the history of Ivy League football from its earliest days to the present, is narrated by two-time Tony Award-winning actor Brian Dennehy (Columbia ’60). It also features interviews with Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones (Harvard ’69), Penn State Coach Joe Paterno (Brown ’50), ESPN anchor Chris Berman (Brown ’77), General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt (Dartmouth ’78), former Secretary of State George Shultz (Princeton ’42), College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik (Penn ‘49), four-time Pro Bowl running back Calvin Hill (Yale ’69), Chicago Bears standout lineman Dan Jiggetts (Harvard ’76), Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmaier (Princeton ’52), actor and Heisman Trophy runner-up Ed Marinaro (Cornell ’72), Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell (Columbia ‘62), and many others.

From the game’s rough and chaotic beginnings, Ivy League schools have built American football, produced some its most enduring and inspirational figures, and embodied what intercollegiate athletics can be at their best. At the core of Ivy League football are the values and leadership lessons transmitted to the men who play it. These men have continued to teach and lead the country based on their experiences both on the gridiron and in the classroom. They are the student-athletes who thrilled America when they played, and who continue to excel today. Eight: Ivy League Football and America is their story.

The film is directed by Erik Greenberg Anjou (A Cantor’s Tale: Ergo Media and the cool surface: Columbia TriStar) and produced by Mr. Anjou and Mark F. Bernstein (author of Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). It was edited by Karlyn Michelson (Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence and A Cantor’s Tale) and features an original score by Grammy-nominated guitarist Gary Lucas (Gods and Monsters).

Further details regarding the film’s premiere and distribution platform will be posted on its website: www.forloveandhonorfilm.com

To learn more about the documentary, please contact Erik Anjou at 917.691.0270 or Mark F. Bernstein at 215.848.1999; or email forloveandhonorfilm@gmail.com.

28 Comments:

At Sat Mar 01, 11:38:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jake, a former varsity player of ours and a good friend asked about the lack of information on our recruits. Voyforums seems to have extensive information on Penn (Asia Sunset must be Al Bagnoli's nom de plume) and on Yale. Plus there is also a lot of information on most of the other schools. But we seem to have a dearth of information. Can we take a crack on your blog of trying to put together a state of the art list of incoming Lions? And PS, this is a plea for all Lion fans to give our 6 seniors a warm farewell tonight.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 01:02:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

To add to above, besides names (we seem to have quite a few this year) and high school encomiums, I'd love to hear opinions of any coaches/recruiters,etc. with insight about our recruits' likely impact on the Lions and the league.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 01:56:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

And any recruits who sparked D1 interest; also any recruits who were recruited by other Ivies.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 03:50:00 AM GMT+7, Blogger Jake said...

We know we have anywhere from 27 to 31 incoming freshmen players, 19of which we have named below, (which is a much better number than we had at this time last year).

I'd like a better analysis of the quality of these guys myself, but I've learned that you really don't know much worth saying until the summer rolls around.

Also, remember that our coaching staff is very protective of this kind of information and we all must respect that.

All that said, we know we have some top quality players in FB Nico Pappas and a few others.

Don't envy the added info that the Penn people may or may not have about their incoming class. Freshmen never take the field for the Quakers, so all the best predictions will still take about another two years to even test on the field.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 04:47:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

St. Xavier/Columbia update: Billy Rumpke and Andy Lamping will be attending Columbia. Rumpke and Lamping will be playing baseball at Columbia. Rumpke also played defensive back on St. Xavier's Championship Football team along with Evan Miller and Ross Morand, who will be attending Columbia as well.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 04:53:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zach Kaplan, an All-League quarterback from Campbell Hall High School in California, has been admitted to Columbia and will probably walk on for football or baseball.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 01:46:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

blog mentioning Zach Kaplan:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/varsitytimesinsider/2007/10/whats-in-a-numb.html

 
At Sun Mar 02, 01:48:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zach Kaplan's stats
http://www.maxpreps.com/FanPages/Player.mxp/California/Boys_Varsity_Football_Fall_07-08/AreaID-8e11e7d4-d3fa-4e6f-827f-652c29439d27/SchoolID-8ef17125-fc50-4509-b551-0b2328150163/AthleteID-4e72d7d6-db1e-4816-91e4-f0493e1274bf

 
At Sun Mar 02, 02:42:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kaplan's stats show that while he passed for over 2700 yards his senior year, his longest single pass play was 21 yards. Is that possible??

 
At Sun Mar 02, 06:55:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't believe CU hoops gets blown out by the worst team in Ivies at home on Senior night. That is Joe Jones in a nutshell. Nice guy, decent recruiter, horrible game coach. We should have swept the floor with Dartmouth. Honestly would hope that Murphy has seen enough and we go a different direction now. And would guess after Baumann(only guy who gave 100 pct every night out of that Senior class)graduates that we take big step backwards yet again. So frustrating...

 
At Sun Mar 02, 07:57:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dartmouth is not the worst basketball team in the Ivy League. That honor goes to Princeton. Next to Princeton, Columbia has the slowest, least athletic basketball team in the Ivy League, which is why Dartmouth killed the Lions last night. Columbia's guards could not defend against Dartmouth's much quicker/more athletic guards. That's why the Lions also lost to Cornell and Brown. I'm not sure Coach Jones is a "horrible game coach," but he certainly hasn't recruited any point guards of the caliber of Cornell's Lewis Dale or a dozen other Ivy League guards during his five years at Columbia. If Coach Jones doesn't recruit a couple of very talented, pure point guards in the next month, Columbia could very well be in the Ivy League basement next season and win only a few games. I don't believe Dr. Murphy needs to be told that. It's obvious to anyone who follows Columbia basketball and was at the Dartmouth Disaster last night.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 09:32:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

let's hear what everyone has to say about the NY Times article re: Harvards new BB coach's tactics!!

 
At Sun Mar 02, 09:55:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK; I was at the game with another alum, a major donor and a football alum. Hereis the story. JJ is a great guy and a decent recruiter. He isn't a very good game time coach and he cannot get players to improve their game. He stank up the house last night. In senior night we looked just awful. Case in point: basiclly nobody can shoot! And if the first offensive option breaks down we never get clean looks at the basket. JB came up small despite his points; he and Ben were both repeatedly stuffed! And Mack apparently decided to take the night off. Bulger plays hard but everybody knows he has absolutely no shot, from anywhere on the court. Bova was not dressed, so Miller came in and was just awful. Ampin looks like a player but doesn't have an offensive repertoire yet. Our point guards were both beaten off the dribble countless times. Foley's absence has been a killer this year; except for Ampin he is the only guy we have who can actually break down defenses. But get used to it; JJ is enormously popular and even though he may not do any better we aren't replacing him any time soon. As for Dartmouth, we still should have beaten them. But what is remarkable is that we actually play better on the road. Our three bolow-out losses in the Ivies have been at home. Of those three losses, we beat one of those temas on the road and barely lost to the other two. Our hom eblow-outs also come on Saturday nights at home. As for the Harvard story, Amaker is using Harvard as astepping stone to get back into the big time. He'll recruit anybody and everybody so long as he can turn the program around. He wants the Duke job when coach K retires in a few years. You heard it here first.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 10:29:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are you joking about Tommy Amaker getting the Duke job? That's one of the top five college coaching positions in the United States. Amaker is one of the worst coaches in the United States. Ask the folks at Seton Hall and the University of Michigan where he was unceremoniously fired last year. Amaker can succeed only at Harvard only if the Harvard administration looks the other way and lets him and his staff break the rules--please see the New York Times sports story today about bigtime Harvard cheating.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 10:38:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We got killed by Dartmouth, but my wife and I loved the entertainment at the basketball game last night. All of a sudden Columbia has a great Pep Band with at least eight terrific drummers, as well as some peppy cheerleaders and a super women's dance team. Whoever was responsible for the entertaiment at the Columbia basketball game last night deserves a huge commendation.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 10:50:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jake, I know it's difficult to get information on the football recruits, with NCAA restrictions, etc., but what's the story about the Columbia Band or "Pep Band." I hope their great performance at the basketball games carries over to football this fall.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 11:19:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The mo on Dr. Murphy is she is not in the "well liked" business but in the "winning now" business--thus the reason she was brought in. JJ has had his recruits for a few years and I'm sorry but a winning record doesn't cut it. As a major city school, we should be vying for the title every year, not every 4-6 yrs. Great that we have a good pep band--now let's get a great coach and win the Ivies--it certainly is about time.

 
At Sun Mar 02, 11:21:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It has taken Steve Donahue 10 years to put together a team that has won the championship. Did he finally get lucky? Has he gotten smarter? I suspect it's something else. Some famous coach, I forget which one, once said that coaching is 75% recruiting. I think that's probably right. What does this mean for Ivy coaches? To start, there's a certain amount of unpredictability in any recruiting, even at the high major level where the players have been examined and vetted by legions. But Ivy coaches operate with a much, much smaller margin of error with respect to whom they recruit. They can't compete with high majors; mid majors offer scholarships, Ivies of course don't. In addition to that, Ivy recruits have to be very good students. So your pool of possible recruits is much, much smaller than any other D-1 programs. This means that you have to develop a very, very good nose for just the right recruits, and you also have to have some luck. What I suspect Donahue acquired over the years is a nose for just the right recruits. And he also had some luck with avoidance of injuries.

Re Jones, was it obvious to anyone 4 years ago that some of our players were not athletic enough in the right ways? That others, who obviously have a lot of athleticism and talent, but exercise it only sporadically, would be that way? That the only two players who can penetrate, Foley and Armstrong, would be hurt for the season?

I think it takes longer to gauge whether someone will be a good Ivy coach than it does in most other leagues.
-Dr.V

 
At Sun Mar 02, 11:38:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr. V is probably right on here. but I still believe that we should excel in basketball. we are in the basketball capital of the world, our coach is well liked, the program is at least respectable at this point, and in a strange sort of way I actually think we will be more athletic and more competitive next year. Ben Grimes appears to be a player, Ampin has a lot of upside, Scott can play better,

 
At Sun Mar 02, 11:59:00 PM GMT+7, Blogger dabull said...

Jake, will you be at the premier for Eight? I definitely would like to get my hands on a copy of the film when it's available. As for CU b-ball---yuk! We are terrible against ball pressure and we don't motion enough to help alleviate the fact we have no ballhandlers that can blow past heavy ball pressure and pull up in the paint or continue deeper to create a dish off. Definitely need a true point, but need more than one to have secure depth. As for next year I think at least Ampin will be a better player and at least more consistent than Ben. Hope this Grimes is a player. But I'm not real crazy about what we have coming back. Foley will help but he is not the point we are looking for, he could give us the depth their we will need. Just my opinions.

 
At Mon Mar 03, 12:00:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What Steve Donohue learned at Cornell is that you can easily build a powerhouse Ivy League basketball team if you recruit in rinky-dink community colleges out west and make certain that all five of your starters are attending the College of Agriculure and Life Sciences or Human Ecology, where contemporary civilizations courses are unheard of and Homer is best known for being the name of a nearby town. Still, he's won without breaking the NCAA and Ivy League recruiting rules as Amaker is doing at Harvard, so he gets credit for that. Frankly, I have no problem with the Ivy League beign represented by a State Aggie School in the Big Dance, as long as Cornell has played within the rules.

 
At Mon Mar 03, 12:42:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I saw the Cornell roster, and frankly it is an outrage. Instead of berating Harvard, which now deserves it, how about scrutiny of the Cornell roster. It is a joke. Of the 17 players on the varsity roster, only two reserves WHO NEVER PLAY are in either Arts & Sciences or engineering. The others are in whatever they now call the followign state schools: hotel administration; agriculture; labor relations. The same goes for football at Cornell. A former three year starter at offensive line for Cornell told me that the coaches directed him, and most of his teammates as part of the recruiting process to apply eithr to hotel management of the aggie school. And this person told me that he had zero interest in hotel management. So while our guys are putting their noses to the grindstone with real courses the Cornell Varsity learns how to order linens for the main dining room.. I am not putting this on voyforum because idiots like foehi will just use it as an excuse to bash us and the army of Cornell apologists will yell sour grapes. But sometimes the grapes are sour with justification. This is a hot topic among some of the coaches. when NW called out Penn for cutting corners on recruiting -which all of us know has gone on for 30 years, with apologies to Asai Sunset, he was made to take it back by Dianne. Maybe a new Ivy director with a minimal amount of testicularity will level the playing field.

 
At Mon Mar 03, 02:38:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree in that CU should be able to outrecruit most Ivies in basketball on paper but once again like football when you roll them into that gym and they see how pathetic our facilities are it is a tough sell as most of these kids had a better gym in high school. School sells itself but facilities are also part of it and until that is fixed, we will continue to struggle to build a solid program. Penn has the Palestra and Big 5 to lean on--we have a mickey mouse facility in comparison. Why we don't attempt to play more games in MSG(at least 1 0r 2 a year) is a mystery to me as at least that would be a selling point on some level.

 
At Mon Mar 03, 04:01:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

MSG with three thousand fans is really a downer. Our administration is infuriating. Bollinger promised progress but hasn't delivered. the University has to decide if it wants a strong and vibrant Ivy League presence or not. It is an outrage that we still do not have a decent gym after all of these years. And to add insult to injury GS is now carrying paid advertisements on public radio for students! So we are supposed to open up the games for any warm body who can pay tuition while we are out there in a major capital campaign while the university is talking about merging GS into the College, lowering our standards along the way, providing housing and financial aid for GS, and we can't get a gym which is as good as most of the New England Preps! Lee, in the unlikely event that you are reading this, wake up! The university's future depends upon a strong and enthusiastic base of College alumni, and we are crying out for some decent facilities.

 
At Mon Mar 03, 09:04:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is fine to rag on Joe Jones if others must, but two games remain. I hope some of the raggers will be in attendance at either Princeton or Penn this coming weekend.

The real mystery of Columbia basketball to me is why the team can play so much better on the road against opponents like Harvard and Dartmouth than at home. It's also true that The Lions lack the ball handling skills of other Ivy teams. Surely, however, Jones' coaching played some role in the road wins over Harvard and Dartmouth?

But the Harvard story in the Times was just appalling. And worrisome if it's truly indicative of a new sort of "competitive" spirit up there in Cambridge. Worst of all, when confronted with some of the research by the Times, the university's representatives seemed to equivocate. If the story is true and Amaker (who comes from a place in Seton Hall which has very little else to recommend it save basketball and thus is well known for its recruiting desperation) gets away with all of it, than Ivy athletics is truly besmirched. How come, too, the Times didn't approach Jeff Orleans for any comments for its story? Obvious hole there, I'd say.

It was good Saturday night, however, to see that Norries was apparently still on the job at 9PM. I can only hope all this work means an improvement in the football team's record next fall.

rs

 
At Tue Mar 04, 06:00:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Our three blow out losses were all at home, to teams which we either beat on the road (Dartmouth) or barely lost to (Cornell Aggies and Brown). I think that this is basically inexplicable. And I think that all three home bow out losses have been on Saturdays. Also inexplicable. We have also played better on hte road against clearly more talented teams (Ohio State and Villanova). but my biggest complaint is that our coaches don't seem to get the most out of our talent. Most of our players haven't improved their game and in some cases (except for the always hustling JB) have actually regressed. And as a team I haven't seen improvement from week to week; rather, I have seen inconsistency. I have also seen a total absence of offensive movemnt:no open looks ; horrific shooting; poor passes. Can anybody tell me that JJ is an effective game time coach? Is he in the same league as a Craig Robinson? Is Brown more talented? Or did we have a bunch of slow and not particularly athletic players who did about as well as could be expected?

 
At Tue Mar 04, 08:27:00 AM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brown is more talented.

Brown has more athletic players than Columbia - but not as athletic players as Cornell.

The standings almost completely bear out the talent level in the league this year.

 
At Tue Mar 04, 09:48:00 PM GMT+7, Anonymous Anonymous said...

On analysis of incoming talent, arguably the second best Lion of the last 20 years was Des Werthman. As I recall, none of the Ivies had an interest in him,k even though his brother played for Yale. He had a highlight film and talked Tellier into recruiting him. The rap was that he was too small. He was the best player in the league for 2 or three years. Nobody could have measured his heart, or even his talent. In that regard, any news on Justin Masorti?

 

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