Time's Running Down
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Robert Lipsyte
Blast from the Past
Veteran sportswriter Robert Lipsyte has an interesting new piece in The Nation, and it all starts with a story about the role a particular Columbia sports coach played in the 1968 riots. You have to read how it ends.
I'll let you judge the piece for yourselves, but I think it's obvious that Lipsyte is not considering the tremendous academic and physical commitment of Columbia and other Ivy school athletes.
If he did, he might have his whole world view thrown for a loop!
Tick Tock
Were just 50 days away from the beginning of the 2011 season, about about three weeks from the start of training camp. But the new season is even closer for our week one opponent Fordham.
The Rams kickoff at Connecticut in just 34 days at Big East powerhouse UConn and I would guess that training camp begins the Bronx in the next 10 days.
For the record, week two opponent U. Albany starts its season in just 36 days on September 3rd at Patriot League powerhouse Colgate. Week four opponent Sacred Heard starts at home against Marist also on September 3rd
We’re getting close folks… really close.
Top 100 Moments of 2010
#50: You Gotta Have Heart
With 5:31 left in the 4th, the Lions began their final possession trailing 27-13 and without any real hope of winning the week five game against Penn.
But you wouldn’t have known that by the determined way Columbia closed out the game fighting.
On the first series, the Lions beat a 4th and 7 with an eight yard pass from Sean Brackett to Nico Gutierrez.
Several plays later, Brackett converted a 4th and 2 with an eight yard run to the Penn 28.
On the next play, with just 19 seconds left, Brackett found Kurt Williams for a 15 yard gain to the Quaker 13.
Two incomplete passes followed and the game ended.
On one hand, it was just another opportunity lost at Franklin Field that day.
On the other hand, it was five and a half minutes of strong evidence that Brackett and Co. don’t quit.
posted by Jake @ 6:53:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Lipsyte wrote the typical elite media old arguement about jocks and "jock culture".
A lot of those jocks that were standing on the lines around Low Library were kids who didn't agree with the "pukes" that the only way to create change was to tear the system down.
They believed that political change could only take place at the point of the gun.
That was a pretty bad story by Lipsyte, let's be honest, Nothing new, either. That it ran in the far left The Nation only figures.
But I can clear up a bit about the term "jocks and pukes," which I heard on campus as far back as fall 66 (way beore Coach Stowe arrived) and in fact helped popularize.
Spring 67 I ran my fraternity's booth at the annual spring carnival. I chose a "jocks vs. pukes theme." Bought some photos of a recent brawl between the 2 factions from Spectator. Placed them on boards, circled the "leading" perps from both sides. 3 darts per chance, hit the jock or the puke in the head or heart and win a prize! Most popular booth at the carnival. Only complaint came from Spectator, but I noted I'd bought the shots free and clear and they'd never restricted me as to intended use. After the "jocks vs. pukes" game, the phrase finally achieved some currency at CU.
The truth about the "pukes," however, is that they were generally a bunch of arrogant, elitist little snots. Indulged by some fsculty, by others viewed as disruptive in class, but, no matter that so many wore blue chambray "work" shirts, not at all truly interested in the proletariat. I used to try and tell them that jocks, football guys in particular, were often ethnic, the first in their families to attend college, from grotty west PA steel towns and equally moribund Jersey and LI burbs. They just sneered. These guys were as much qualified to be a real revolutionary vanguard as I was a goatherd.
Lipsyte also errs claiming there were "antiracism" demos on campus in those days. No, there were daily misrepresentations of CU's intent in daring build a gym for vastated Morningside Park (where there was a tree stuck full of used junkies' needles) that the "community" and students could actually share. (Though come 68, the pukes proved clever at manipulating the media.)
So Lipsyte's essay is wrongheaded, dated and condescending (common fodder in The Nation, I know). But then, moral peril almost always accompanies those who would so romanticize the cliched "spirit" of the 60's.
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