A Little Hollywood Magic

Let me tell you a football story!


If you haven't yet bought your copy of the excellent documentary, 8: Ivy League Football and America, you can by clicking here for the the "8" Web site.

As I've written before, once you get the DVD you should make sure to check out the "bonus features" section that includes a great and funny speech by Brian Dennehy about the 1957 season opener at Brown.

Dennehy's story about how Columbia won that game in such exciting, and humorous, fashion had me wondering if maybe some of the story was embellished... maybe just a little bit.

Well, upon further review, it appears Dennehy's account was about 99% true! I don't want to give away all the funny and surprising aspects of the story, but I will say that Columbia did indeed beat Brown on a 4th quarter field goal by Rudy Pegoraro. The only slight error was that Dennehy said the Lions were trailing 21-19 before the winning kick, when the score was actually tied at 20-20 before the 23-20 win... but I'm willing to give him that little bit of poetic license.

Another highlight of the game was the fact that it was coach Buff Donelli's first game at the helm and his son Dick Donelli was a big hero with two TD passes from his QB position and two picks from his safety position.

Despite the encouraging win to start the '57 campaign, Columbia would not win again that season and only scored another 31 points in the remaining 8 games. Brown was favored by many to win the league in 1957, but the week one loss was hard to overcome. The Bears finished up 5-4 on the season and 3-4 in the Ivies.


A Connecticut Calling

UConn's offensive coordinator position is open once again now that Rob Ambrose has taken the head coaching job at Towson. So a reporter at the Hartford Courant is openly wondering if Norries Wilson will go back to Storrs to get his old job back. What was the reporter's ultimate answer? A very clear "no."