Lesson Learned: Don't Believe The Hype

The beginning of the 2006 football season marks the very sad 45th anniversary of Columbia's sole Ivy League football championship-a shared title with Harvard.That milestone, in many ways, represents the futility that has existed in Columbia athletics' failed efforts to remain competitive relative to its Ivy League peers. The story of Columbia athletics is one that can only be defined by one word: tragedy. Anyone following the department in its history has heard of the countless failed plans for facilities (including the 1968 death blow), embarrassing losing streaks and championship droughts.Yep-it's been pretty bad to be a Columbia sports fan.The past four years have been particularly challenging. In football, the graduating class has seen (or heard) about four conference victories and 24 losses, including two seasons in which the team did not beat an Ivy league opponent. In basketball, this class has seen 13 Ivy wins and 43 losses, but has been riveted by both a double-OT win over Yale in 2004 and a sweep of Penn and Princeton at home this year. In women's lacrosse-one of the Ivy League's nationally competitive sports-this class has seen one win and 27 losses. Think about that for a second-one win and 27 losses. Would there even be a high school in the country where that record would be acceptable? Forget about a Division I college program. The list could go on and on. Some teams have had success-fencing has continued to win its share of titles, the women's and men's cross-country teams have dominated, the men's tennis team has made admirable runs at championships and lightweight crew shocked Yale our sophomore year-but it's the usual cast of characters.Yet for three years, Columbia athletics fans have been strung along by the prospect of change. It started with the second coming. PresBo, a UMich guy, has repeatedly declared that he wants athletics to be competitive in the Ivy League. Former athletic director John Reeves hired Bob Shoop and Joe Jones in 2003 to revive programs left in the dust decades ago by their Ivy peers. Since then, Shoop was handed his walking papers and Jones' team has yet to crack .500 in the conference or overall. That's a big part of the problem-talk is cheap and it's easy to get lost in the shocking bubble of optimism that pervades through one of the worst athletic programs in the history of competitive sports.M. Dianne Murphy was handed the keys a year ago, and new provisions were made to ensure athletics had a larger voice in the central administration. Murphy reports directly to Bollinger and has a support from the board of trustees chair William Campbell, who played on Columbia's Ivy League championship team in 1961.But it is unclear just how bright the future is. Since the beginning of her tenure, Murphy has begun to make key infrastructural changes. At the most basic level, Columbia's facilities are receiving minor facelifts and new coaches are starting to filter in. New football coach Norries Wilson arrived in December to replace Shoop, but must proudly lead the least talented squad in the Ivy League.Murphy, too, is slowly taking on the larger issues. Barry Neuberger, who runs Columbia's sports marketing division, has changed game days for football and basketball, streamlined the department's logos and marks, and is exploring more business opportunities from marketing. Murphy is examining and tackling the issue of athlete retention as evidenced by the new registration policies and increased administrative support in making student athletes' lives easier.All of these initiatives, and others, are aimed not only at success on the playing field but also at extracting more money from alumni-a major resource that would make the athletics department less dependent on the university budget.Two years ago, when former columnist Phil Wallace filled this space for the last time, he demanded an apology to student athletes for not getting the support they deserved from the administration. That column stemmed from a ground-breaking story printed in Spectator about two significant athletics facilities-an extension of the Dodge Fitness Center above the tennis courts in the northwest corner of campus (where the new science building will now be built) and an aquatics center on 120th street and Amsterdam on the footprint of the School of Social Work building-that were never built because of a series of miscommunication and fundraising blunders by then Provost Jonathan Cole and Reeves.At that point, things seemed to hit rock bottom, which says quite a bit for an athletic department which has brought a new definition to the term coaching graveyard (if anyone's interested, a quick Google search for Columbia's last ten football head coaches confirms that there is a larger number of them running diners in Vermont than still coaching football, if you catch my drift). Columbia athletics had arguably hit a new low. When that story was printed, Reeves was a lame duck and Murphy had yet to be chosen as his successor.Murphy is stuck now trying to resuscitate a program that forever has been drastically under-funded, under-supported, never appreciated, and well behind its competition. Despite what top administrators say, there is no doubt that the odds-not to mention decades of institutional aversion to athletics-are against her. The task she faces isn't just a simple challenge, but one of epic proportions. It would be the academic equivalent of having to turn South Chipopla Community College into an Ivy League school.I believe that Murphy is taking the right steps, but I have been around Columbia athletics too long to buy into the hype. I've seen the Hail Mary catch against Princeton, but I've also see the next year's version of that squad give up on a 4th and 17 in overtime. I've seen the men's basketball team sweep the Killer P's, and I've seen the women's squad miss a game-winning layup at the Palestra in a year the team should have had its first-ever winning conference season. I've seen coaches come into the school with a complete disdain for the "losing culture" only to find them praising .500 squads and settling for mediocrity within years. It's what Columbia does to you. Walk in a winner and exit, well, with more losses on your resume than you've had over the course of your entire life.The graduate and fan in me wants to believe that things are going to get better. The columnist in me knows to wait and see. I'll opt to wait and see. To the class of 2006: you should too.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As this is my last column, a number of thanks are in order. I would not have gotten my start at Spectator without Phil Wallace. Phil, you've been a mentor and a friend-but, most importantly, thanks for showing up to that interest meeting in August 2002. Megan Greenwell was essential (and thankfully tolerated endless rants, raves, and threats) in making this commitment the most worthwhile venture of my undergraduate career. Nick Summers taught me more about journalism and leadership than I ever learned, and I am grateful that such a great friendship evolved out of so many late nights. Anand Krishnamurthy and Jake Olson have been two of Spec Sports' greatest assets and pushed the section well beyond where I thought it could go. To Josh Robinson and Jon Kamran, who are keeping up Spec sports' recent success. To R.R., T.F., C.C., S.H., J.S., Z.B., E.H., N.C., A.S., B.S., H.C., M.O., C.G., P.C., B.P., T.W., A.Z., J.O., S.K., J.W., I.D., D.C., W.F., A.O., K.G., T.A., A.S., N.L., G.K.-it's been a great year and will be a good one. Finally, kT with A.M., R.M., C.P. and D.S. will always be missed.It's been a great run. Thank you for reading.