Time to Prove Your Love!
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BUY TICKETS NOW!!!
This is the last non-Columbia football weekend until Thanksgiving.
It's already WAY past time to buy your tickets, but do it now!
Seriously, buy your tickets NOW for the Columbia home games and BUY EXTRA! Get your friends and family to come and make it an outing.
By the way, if you buy season tickets you get the pass to the athletic director's tent with free food and beer before each home game.
Why would you not do this?
DONATE
And it's also high time to make a donation to the football program, just as a "kickoff vote of confidence" for the new season.
You can do that by clicking here, and tell them Roar Lions Roar sent you!
(Don't worry, I DON'T get a commission).
Good Effort
Every year, someone on the Columbia Spectator staff writes a piece urging more students to show support for athletics and come to the games.
This year's entry, by sophomore Jeremiah Sharf, was one of the better efforts in the genre and I commend him.
I don't hold out much hope for the ALWAYS snarky campus blog BWOG.Net to make any mention at all of the football team, except maybe the night before the first game next week and at Homecoming.
And that's too bad.
But we all know what will get more students and student publications crowing about football: winning. We start winning, and the snark goes away.
It's as simple as that.
Better Effort
We'll have to see if they deliver what they promise, but I think Dartmouth has set the bar at a new high with its HD streaming video for football this fall.
Bruce Wood's Big Green Alert Blog reports that: "There will be four cameras, including one at field level. There will, in fact, be instant replays, and stats will be included on the screen. All five home games will be carried, even if the college reaches an agreement to have a game or two broadcast regionally on TV."
9/11, Ten Years Later
I'm a little ambivalent about all the 9/11 anniversary events this weekend around the country.
But I do want to remember the very classy way Columbia and the Ivy League handled the situation.
The attacks took place on the Tuesday before a very much anticipated Lions' season was set to begin.
I say much anticipated because Columbia had its all-time leading rusher Johnathan Reese returning for a senior year and there was a lot of excitement in the air.
Everyone did the right thing that Saturday and all the Ivy League teams were idle in honor of the victims of the atrocity.
But then Columbia and would-be week one opponent Fordham took it up a notch and did a few more very good things that we all still benefit from today.
The week one game was rescheduled for Thanksgiving Day, thus giving the fans a chance to see a full season, (something no other Ivy team did. Everyone else had just nine games in 2001).
And the following year, Columbia and Fordham began dedicating their annual game to the 9/11 victims with the Liberty Cup game that they two schools still play to this day.
To tell you the truth, this is my way of weighing in on KEEPING the annual game with Fordham no matter how strong the Rams might someday become because of their athletics scholarships.
I wish the deepest comfort for all the families and friends of all the 9/11 victims
More Memories
As I've written on this blog before, San Diego Chargers star WR Vincent Jackson was very close to coming to Columbia before he chose Northern Colorado for college.
Jackson is quoted in this story about how he was really jolted by the attacks when he realized how close he came to playing his college ball in New York City.
I still say not coming to Columbia was his loss!
And here's another interesting Columbia athletics twist on the 9/11 story.
It turns out one of those kids who was in the class President Bush was visiting when the attacks went down is a wrestler coming to Columbia next year! Read this great story for all the details.
Stotler Made his last play at home really count (CREDIT: Columbia Athletics)
Top 100 Moments of 2010
#8: Stotler's Big Hand
After Columbia closed the deficit to 17-13 midway through the 4th quarter against Cornell, the offense suddenly started sputtering again.
Two straight possessions after that produced no points for the Lions and that meant the defense needed to stuff the Big Red when they got the ball back at their own six with just 4:42 left.
Cornell did squeeze out one first down forcing Columbia to burn one timeout and forcing the Lions to make sure they got a stop when the Big Red faced another 3rd down with 2:51 left.
If Cornell had converted that 3rd down, the game would probably have ended with a Lion loss.
But that's where senior D-lineman Matt Stotler came in.
On that 3rd and two play from the 28, Cornell decided to throw the ball and Stotler promptly knocked the pass down not far from the line of scrimmage.
It was a big time play and Stotler had kept the Columbia alive.
posted by Jake @ 10:31:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
What about parking for the Fordham game. Any suggestions?
Will Columbia have a student bus available for the Fordham game? Very disappointed no scrimmages OR updates on the team from the web site? The Spec did a nice job promoting support of the team, but our own athletic department is lacking. No new info on the team, other than what we hear on campus. I get better pre-season high school updates from The Record (Bergen County NJ paper). Go Paramus Catholic!
Re parking for Fordham. Arrive early! I believe it's their Homecoming, which means it'll be a zoo.
I was bothered somewhat, however, by that letter which recently came seeking money for football. For the first time in my memory, it wasn't signed by Dianne Murphy, but rather by two relatively new hires. It also held out the promise of parking privileges at Bakier Field and fre tickets for one's (very high-priced" donation, policies which the last few years Columbia has seemed to wisely de-emphasize..
It was a seemingly cold letter, "professional-sounding," sure, but also commercial, and aimed only at big donors. It never once mentioned the more modest levels of giving where most folks' names seem to reside in the football program, which bothered me. (Without a winning season so far during Norries Wilson's tenure, as well, I found it somewhat nervy, not least because I honestly wonder if Norries can survive another losing season no matter how nice and well-liked he always seems.) One can only hope this is not a harbinger of what is to come.
I have to disagree about parking at Fordham. By all means, get there early, BUT they have a big parking area and a new garage that should accommodate all but the latest of late comers.
Cathar:
I am doing my best to add to the info about the team in this blog. I know the athletic department is understaffed and I don't expect them to be able to focus on the football team as much as I do.
Hopefully, the info you get daily here fills the void.
But that said, I have NO IDEA why the communications and promotion for this team with the BEST QB we've had in 28 years has been so thin. Since as a Jet fan I am still recovering from the Mangini era, I tend to chalk this up to coaching secrecy, but why it's been heightened this year I cannot say. It's unfortunate in any case, because our student athletes deserve as much promotion as possible. That's where I come in and have been for 7 years.
Jake, I once went to the game at Fordham on their Homecoming, and it was very, very bad. Not so much that every parking spot was taken, but that alumni congregating, drinking and dining spilled over into spots which otherwise could have held more cars. We ended up parking several blocks away, it truly was all we could find.
But it wasn;t me complaining about you offering up little real info on the team. Perhaps you're having a "senior moment?" Don't worry, Jake, it happens to all of us, just to some sooner than later.
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