Parkas: The Answer
I have spoken to multiple reliable sources trying to figure out why the team did not have proper winter coats and gear for Saturday's game vs. Yale.
All of those sources say the same thing...
The football team doesn't have parkas.
It NEVER had parkas...
... at least not for the last decade or so.
There was no "loan" of the non-existent parkas to any other team.
I'll just leave it by saying I love the idea of fans here donating whatever they can to purchase the proper gear in time for next season.
posted by Jake @ 10:45:00 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
for goodness sake, let this subject die.
Maybe 3-5 Harvard players wore jackets on the sideline of game - which was at night and, I assume, much colder than it was at Columbia.
The Crimson seemed to do just fine with 40 points and 500 yards offense.
I find this amazing. My high school in Los Angeles had parkas for the football team.
That still doesn't explain why they didn't bring in heaters. That is something they very easily could have gotten Friday afternoon. Regardless of the snow they knew Thursday to expect 20-30 mph wins, 100% chance of rain and temperatures at best in the lower 40s. They didn’t seem to have an issue getting a truck with a plow.
Lack of equipment is a good indication of poor management in the ADs office. It is cold in November and never even considering winter gear just amazes me.
Hopefully they are getting the hint and in process of making the appropiate purchases.
It wouldn't surprise me if Bollinger told Murphy that he needs to approve of any purchases over $100
Wearing jackets when it's cold is common sense. Just because other people may play in the cold without them doesn't make it right.
15 kids on one high school team in Long Island got hypothermia after playing just one half of football that Saturday!
Setting aside just the human nature of giving a kid a coat when it's cold it seems like it could open Columbia up to liability. Columbia has an entire department dedicated to Risk Management. Now that this issue has been brought to the forefront I hope that they study the potential risks that it opens Columbia up to if something happens to a student-athelete that's not equipped approapriately by the University.
If the WRs aren't freezing and wet, do they perhaps catch one or two more balls during the day? Might our LBs and DBs be a little faster if they're not frostbitten? Do parkas and heaters help guys play better and maybe help us win a game? The point is, you're either trying to win or you're not. The message of parkagate turns out to be that the adults who supervise the program are not doing everything they can to help the football team win. Jake is saying they should be held accountable for that mentality.
It's the same with hiring coaches on the cheap. Yes, football is a money loser at CU. But if we spent enough to be competitive, maybe attendance would go up. Maybe donations would rise. Maybe the athletes would look back fondly on their CU days rather than ruefully on what might have been. Selfishly, maybe I would see CU win a homecoming game before I die. And maybe, just maybe, more than 40 people would show up to a class reunion.
The debate over this debacle of a season should really be about two alternatives: 1. upgrading football so that we invest in good facilities and equipment and hire adults who are capable of offering a positive experience to students; or 2. dropping football because it isn't core to the mission of the school.
Frankly, option 2 is more acceptable than what we're doing now. And if you think option 1 represents wishful thinking, I point to baseball. After years of neglect and losing records, today it has one of the better fields in the NE, an energetic and enthusiastic coach and a 2012 spring trip to California that is funded largely by donations. Oh, and every pitcher on the team has a jacket. You know, so they can pitch better.
The habits of the past 50 years need to end. We all need to thank Jake for actually caring enough to raise his voice.
"Carnac the Magnificent"
(In deference to John Alex, Flicker and the greatest Columbia fan of all, Curtis Chen 82
Well I wanted the "Answer". I am flabberghasted! I don't know where to begin. It raises as many questions as it answers.
My first impressions are that this is a really strange lot at Columbia. The evasiveness of the answer, the posts that were purposely misleading, and the utter irresponsibilty of the athletic department.
I now have a deeper understanding of Jake's portrayal of the "Apple" commercial in taking on the Columbia establishment and national political references to the "crowd on the upper west side".
Let me start here. Well congratulations Columbia, you are unique. You are very very likely the only Division 1 program in the nation without parkas for your players! Quite an accomplishment considering you have been playing football for about 130 years? Note to athletic department, it is cold in New York City, Boston, Ithaca, New Haven, Hanover, and Providence in October and November. Quite an accomplishment for a University that has just completed a $4.5 BILLION fundraising campaign and can't afford parkas for their football players! Just leave them out in the cold, right Cathar?, things are expensive in New York City. How inconvenient that the players may want to avoid hypothermia and frostbite.
I don't know what to make of Coach Wilson's part in this. Was he supposed to buy the parkas from his budget? Is he working on a budget so tight he can't operate a respectable program? Not enough to hire the kind of coaches he needs nor equip the players properly? Is he the cause or is he the victim?
MS Murphy, the AD. Is she the one responsible to outfit the players with appropriations from the budget? Does she not have enough to run the programs properly? Is this why she wants to abruptly run off to West Point? Is she the cause or a victim?
This may seem like Parka Gate but I suspect it is just symptomatic of the fundamantal root cause for losing sports. Why can't Columbia compete evenly with its' Ivy peers on the football and athletic fields? Mr Campbell is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, is he powerless? How can that be?
This Cathar guy always seems concerned with the cost of things. Is he a red herring from administration to divert the investigation and discussion of the root cause? He always attempts to hijack the discussions into resignation, as that's always the way it will be, so what. Who is it that continues to intentionally mislead the blog with false information? Are their posters to discourage our desire to compete more evenly by requesting more funding? Is this an interdepartmental funding sabotage?
Why do posters rail against anonymity? Without anonymity, this blog isn't worth the paper it isn't printed on. That would remove all players, families, staff and employees. A dramatic drop in information, posters, and current affairs. All we'd have is a bunch of old alumni farts grumping about a bunch of stuff they aren't sure about. Why do we always lose, they'd ask?
This blog challenges the way things have always been done. It keeps the heat on the decision makers who prefer we all just"go away". It continually raises new information however uncomfortable. Push on I say, its our only way to effect change. I hate losing. I refuse to accept it. I support you Jake. Fight on, it's our only chance!
Dear Carnac:
The envelope is touching my forehand and I can see your image. Greetings, and I agree that anonymity is an important factor in getting all views onto the table, even those that seem to go against any facts, reason or real concern for addressing the causes of our program's issues (rather than saying...oh boy that was a valiant loss)
A lot of potential causes are offered on this sight, but my guess is that none has ever systematically analyzed which are the real roots of our programs underperformance, The way a major corporation would deal with this is to bring in an independent consultant to conduct interviews of current/former players, admin, recruits, opposing coaches and coaches who have turned around their programs....and yes, our past coaches. I bet answers would come out of that pretty quickly...IF someone actually commissioned the work.
My old firm, Booz Allen was engaged by the NFL twice and I worked on a study of the league office and its effectiveness, so I can say first hand that management consulting practices can be applied to sporting enterprises (as I was the young associate on one done for Paul Tagliabue back when Roselle retired).
Until you truly isolate the root causes, you cannot know where to act or spend money.
Chen '82
I don't think we need Booz Allen to tell us that we have an administration that couldn't care less about our sports programs.
Flicker
Understand your point at a broad level, but the devil of the solution id always in the detail. If you could fix the apathy at the top, then what? The problem must be deeper than just the administration
Chen 82
I think the administration figures that CU is perennially ranked as a top 5 school with a top 5 endowment so what is the upside in investing in that thuggish sport? All it could possibly do is damage our academic reputation.
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