See You, (Again), in September

The Oil Bowl is a 62-Year-Old Tradition

I don't know if either of them will see any game action, but incoming Columbia freshman Anthony Maddox and Fordham commit Wes Perryman played on the same eams in the Oil Bowl high school all-star game last month in North Texas.

Perryman told his local paper that he and Maddox exchanged numbers and will talk about their planning for the big move to New York City later this summer. Another player on their team was incoming Dartmouth freshman Daniel Cortez.

Last year, Columbia freshman Carl Constant and Fordham freshman Wendal Joly played together for the New York City squad in the Empire Challenge. But Joly is no longer on the Fordham roster. Constant remains with the Lions, and at 315 lbs., he's the biggest man on the team.


Game of the Day

November 2, 1997

Columbia 17 Princeton 0

1997 was a tough year for the Lions. Coming off that magical 8-2 season in 1996, it was hard to expect the same kind of year in 1997 with Marcellus Wiley, Rory Wilfork, and Randy Murff all lost to graduation.

The Lions had a rude awakening to the post-'96 reality when Harvard whipped them 45-7 in week one at Harvard. They lost three of their next four before easily beating Yale at Homecoming to go to 2-4 coming in to this game.

1997 was a very weird season for the Princeton Tigers, as Palmer Stadium had been torn down and their new home of Princeton Stadium would not be ready until 1998. Princeton ended up playing all but two games that year on the road. They were the official home team against Fordham, playing the game at the College of New Jersey in Ewing, NJ and then against Yale at Giants Stadium.

After falling to Cornell in the opener, the Tigers got hot with wins over Fordham, Holy Cross, Brown and Colgate before falling to eventual Ivy champ Harvard by just a 14-12 score. Princeton was 4-2 coming into Wien Stadium and still in the hunt for a first-tier finish in the Ivies.

Bad weather would dominate the contest, but not as much as the Columbia defense which stuffed the Tigers time after time. Just as importantly, the Lions offense held on to the ball most of the game and let Princeton make all the mistakes.

After a scoreless first quarter, the Tigers fumbled away a Lions punt at their own 8-yard line. Columbia couldn't move the ball forward, but did get a 37-yard field goal from Neil Kravitz for the 3-0 lead.

Another Princeton mistake led to the next CU score. Receiver Ray Canole bobbled a pass, allowing Hashim Dalton to make his second pickoff of the game and then race down the sideline 37 yards to the Tiger 7. Two plays later, QB Bobby Thomason found Lendell Thompson alone in the end zone for a 5-yard TD pass.

Columbia's final score came on a 4th and one from the Princeton 19, when Thomason hit the great tight end Bert Bondi on a play action fake for the touchdown.

A year after Columbia suffered a demoralizing 14-11 loss to the Tigers, they had their revenge with the first Lion shutout of Princeton since 1941.