What NSOP Didn’t Tell You About Sports

Morning—or, let’s be realistic, afternoon—freshmen. By chance, confusion, or curiosity, you’ve come to pick up a copy of the Columbia Daily Spectator, the campus newspaper of Columbia University. Regardless of how you feel about the quality of writing or reporting printed inside, you’ll find yourself snagging copies of this venerable paper pretty frequently—it’s a great substitute for paper towels, in a pinch.

I know that, as newcomers to Columbia, you’re probably still feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the big buildings and shiny things that the University contains. If you’re like me, your brain glazed over somewhere around the eighth or ninth “mandatory” NSOP event. As such, you either spent the remainder of orientation week feng shui-ing your dorm room so that your brand new South Park/Bob Marley/Le Chat Noir poster fit just right on the prison-cell walls of your Carman double, or you drank yourself into a haze from which you’re just awakening. Word to the wise: Nothing works out a hangover better than a Koronet slice and a blue Gatorade.

All that said, it’s a safe bet that at no point during that week of whimsy and mocktails at the Met were you told about Columbia athletics. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you did ask an orientation leader to elaborate on sports here, you received either laughter, some mumbled words that sounded like “embarrassing” and “not worth your time,” or a change of subject entirely. So I’ll take it upon myself as a senior member of this fine institution to educate you, the freshman reader, on the current state of Columbia athletics.

You may have noticed while wandering about and inevitably getting lost somewhere in the East Campus courtyard that Columbia’s athletics facilities are, in fact, not here. Instead, you can find the Baker Athletics Complex, where the majority of Columbia’s teams play, up north at the tip of Manhattan, just a quick jaunt from the subway stop at 215th Street. You can’t miss it—just pass under the train tracks, and you should see it right next to the abandoned donut shop. Once you make your way to the gate, you’ll see Lawrence A. Wien Stadium, where the football team plays on the Robert K. Kraft Field. You can access all this by walking through the Herbert Q. Rich Cracker Parking Lot, accessed by Uncle Moneybags Road.

There is one major athletics facility here on campus: the Dodge Fitness Center, which contains Levien Gymnasium. Dodge is like a Bally Total Fitness, but with no personal trainers or overbearing soccer moms trying to squeeze in 30 minutes on the elliptical before picking up Taylor and Dakota from school. During the day, competition is fierce for treadmills, weights, lockers, and just about any space larger than a square foot. As such, you’ll probably end up working out at some ungodly hour for about two weeks before deciding that you get enough exercise from hauling ass up the Hamilton stairs. If weights aren’t your game, you can also try to fight your way into a pickup basketball game down below, provided you’re willing to deal with teammates who think they’re the Harlem Globetrotters winging no-look passes off of the walls and botching fast-breaks like they were the Knicks.

Levien, meanwhile, is where Columbia’s basketball teams play. Apparently purchased by the University off of a local high school sometime in the 1970s, Levien hosts games that will be characterized by the loudest scoreboard on the East Coast, cheerleading routines, and, if you’re lucky, Roar-ee, the anthropomorphic lion mascot of Columbia who revels in high-fiving kids, and who I hope is drunk as all hell while on the job.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the teams you’ll be seeing in your stay at the University. Your first focus will be on football, which, depending on your threshold for pain can be either monumentally enjoyable or just plain sad. The team went just 1-9 last year, including a winless campaign in Ivy League play, but there is still hope that the core of young and talented players can turn things around for the program. In related news, peace talks in the Middle East have broken down once again.

Eventually, once we get to winter, you’ll find yourself in Levien for basketball games, at Uris Pool for swim meets, or in the back of a gym in the bowels of Dodge watching men and women in full-body armor slap each other with tiny swords. Then we’ll reach spring, with baseball, the great American pastime, as well as golf, the great Westchester pastime, and track, the great Jamaican pastime.

So now that I’ve given you a cursory look at Columbia athletics—which I’m sure you abandoned for the Sudoku puzzle on the inside about 50 words in—I encourage you, young stewards of hope and change and all the other intangible things Barack Obama stands for, to go forth and explore everything that Columbia athletics has to offer. And, if you’re interested in chronicling the dramatic adventures of Columbia’s athletes, stop by the Spectator office between 111th and 112th on Broadway. The door’s always open, provided that you can figure out the keypad combo to call someone and then understand the garbled words that come back at you.

Oh, and the answer to the blank space in the top right corner is the number eight. You’re welcome.

Jonathan Tayler is a Columbia College senior majoring in history.
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