Sobering Story

Matt James 1982-2010

St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati has been sending a lot of top players to Columbia lately... Drew Quinn '09 and Lou Miller '10, to name just two.

Based on what I've seen from the St. X players at Columbia and so many of the other Ivies, I'm impressed.

But tragedy has struck that community this week as a top player has died under questionable circumstances.

Senior Matt James, one of Notre Dame's top incoming freshmen, fell to his death Friday during a spring break trip to Panama City, Florida. Alcohol seems to have been involved, but that's not 100% confirmed.

A few of the parents of current Columbia players' from St. X told me about James months ago. They said he was going to be a big force in college and noted that he was pretty much decided to go to a big BCS program.

At the very least, this is a tragic story. But if alcohol was indeed involved, and this young person with such a great future died for absolutely nothing... then you have to call what's happened an atrocity.

I'm from that generation of sports fans who remembers exactly where they were when we heard the news of Len Bias' untimely demise. And every time a story like that hits the news, I get the same kind of sad and angry feeling in my stomach.

My condolences go out to this young man's family and friends. And maybe THIS time, more of us will learn an important lesson from this otherwise completely senseless death.



Brook Hart


Back to the good news...

Yale's Brook Hart must HATE the Baker Athletics Complex.

Why do I say that?

Work with me here...

The baseball team opened Ivy play this weekend with a 3-1 start, sweeping Yale on Saturday and splitting with Brown yesterday.

The opening win for the Lions came despite a great overall performance by Hart.

But you'll remember that it was a subpar performance by Hart in the football game last October at Wien Stadium that basically led to his losing the starting QB job at Yale.

It's not clear if Hart will be back with the football team this fall. But I am sure that if he is, he'll be happy to remember that the Columbia-Yale game is in New Haven.


THANKS!


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