Manhattan Transfer

Lomax wins top honors

Congratulations to junior Judie Lomax for becoming Columbia's first womens basketball player to win the Ivy Player of the Year award. Lomax led the league in scoring, rebounding and steals.

As a lot of Columbia football fans point out, Lomax is a transfer who came to Columbia in 2008 from Oregon. They point that out to me because they generally would like to see more transfers come to Columbia football too.

The trouble with that is "recruiting" or luring student athletes at other schools is strictly, strictly forbidden. Basically, when you see a kid coming to an Ivy League school it's usually because that kid was recruited by an Ivy before he or she made the original college choice. I believe that was especially the case with Lomax.

But what Columbia and other schools can do is create a friendly atmosphere for transfers. I think Columbia has that already.

In our case it might be nice for sports fans, (including a lot of people who read this blog), to remind everyone that athletes can sometimes find a great new start in the General Studies school, etc. I know a lot of our armed services veterans with tremendous athletic ability might be interested in GS.

Other than GS, there are other great avenues that make transferring to Columbia a great option. Football standouts like Galen Snyder, Wade Fletcher, and many, many other football stars over the past 25 years serve as great examples of this.

Let me be clear, the talent level on this current Columbia football team is off the charts in comparison to most of the Lion past. But consider what Clifton Dawson, (transfer from Northwestern), did for the already talented Harvard Crimson in the mid 2000's. Think about what guys like Andrew Hatch will do for the Crimson next year. Yale may have been burned a bit at time by Nebraska transfer QB Patrick Witt last season, but he certainly has great talent and a quick release. If he can get his head together, he could help save that team next season.

But the overall point is, no team in the Ivies can afford to appear to be "too good" for potential transfers. Princeton's essential ban on all transfers almost killed the Tigers completely as they entered the year with an incredibly shallow bench at a number of key positions... especially QB.

Don't let this happen to you.