Winning and Cheering

Kudos to the men's basketball team for its weekend home sweep over Yale and Brown.

And special kudos to the very vocal fans who made their presence felt throughout both games and proved that school spirit is very much alive in Morningside Heights. I wathced most of both games on GoColumbiaLions.com, but during those moments when I had to run a few errands I listened to WKCR in the car and you could barely hear the announcers over the raucous student fans.

It was a nice face of the campus sports scene to show to some strong potential football recruits who were reportedly making campus visits over the weekend.



Back to the Program

I continue now with my page-by-page look at the 1961 Columbia-Penn program. This was the game that the Lions won to clinch their one and only Ivy title.

We pick it up now with page 8 and the pictures of the team captains.




On top we have a shot of Bill Campbell standing at attention at the foot of the Lion statue at Baker Field.

I've written so much about Campbell, Columbia's current Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and I encourage everyone to use the search feature at the top left of this page and search for all those posts.

But something that I will add here today is that everyone should realize how valuable a person Campbell has been to this university for the past 50 years. His name truly belongs with names of Seth Low and Nicholas Murray Butler as people who made Columbia the school that it was, is, and will be in the future.

Below Campbell is the picture of Penn captain Michael Natale. He is pictured facing the home stands at Franklin Field.



Michael Natale


Now you have to feel for almost anyone who has to compare his playing and post playing career to Bill Campbell. But poor Natale really seems small in comparison. I say that because I'll be darned if I can find anything written about him out there.

I do know he was a 5"9 190-pound right guard who came to Penn from Uniontown Joint High School in New Salem, PA. He was also quoted later in the program in a running feature that I assume appeared in all Ivy League game programs at the time. Several players would be asked questions like, "who's the best or toughest opponent you ever faced in the Ivies, etc." Natale's answers to the question: "Who was the best Ivy player you ever played," was Ben Balme, a Yale guard who graduated after the 1960 season.

More on the program in the days and weeks to come.