I love Super Bowl Sunday. I’ve gone on record in this paper saying that both Super Bowl Sunday and Hangover Monday should be considered national holidays. It’s not only about loving football—I love the food, the commercials, the camaraderie, the passion, everything. This year, though, there is one thing I hate about the Super Bowl: the Indianapolis Colts.
It’s not my fault that I hate the Colts—as a Patriots fan, I don’t have a choice. There is no doubt in my mind that Peyton Manning is one of the top five quarterbacks of all time right now—I’ll refute anyone who is senseless enough to believe otherwise—and I think his commercials are hilarious, but do I root against him and the Colts in just about every game they play. Sure do.
Probably the one exception was the AFC Championship, when I decided I would rather see the Colts go to the Super Bowl (and lose) than see the Jets move on and give their annoying fans any hope of there being a parade through the dreaded Canyon of Heroes.
Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you that I’m not a hateful person. There’s just something about sports that inspires extreme passion in me and allows me to unleash my frustrations on people who I’ll probably never meet. And you know what? That’s another thing I love about sports. No matter what teams are playing, there’s almost always someone or something to root for or against. My team may not be in the Super Bowl this weekend, but I have to watch. Not just because it is my duty as an American citizen, but because I have to root against the Colts.
When it comes to Ivy League Sports, any player or fan here at Columbia has teams that they despise in certain sports, schools they despise in general, and schools that don’t bother them at all. After covering the football team for three years and going to countless other Columbia sporting events over my time here, the team that I found I loathed the most was Cornell.
Why the Big Red? What did anyone there ever do to me? I’m not really sure how to answer that question. It’s not that Cornell did anything to make me hate it—I’m pretty sure I just can’t stand Ithaca. I’ve been there three times to cover games (football and basketball), and looking back, I think it was three times too many. Ithaca itself is a quaint little town nestled in the hills of upstate New York, and while I can see why it might appeal to other people, it’s just not for me.
Based on this reasoning, you might think that I have something against Dartmouth too, but actually, I don’t. Maybe it’s because the trip there is filled with scenic views of autumnal New England. Maybe it’s because both times I went there on Spectator business, we split the trip over two days. Maybe it’s because Buddy Teevens has a soothing voice and—win or lose—might just be the nicest coach in the Ivy League. I have no idea, but Dartmouth has tended to be the team that bothers me least in the Ancient Eight.
Over this basketball season, though, something has changed in me. I’ve stopped hating Cornell and have found myself rooting for the Big Red. Not when they come to Levien, of course—but when they took Kansas to the brink at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, I excitedly tuned in on ESPN2 to watch what I was hoping would be the biggest upset by an Ivy League basketball team since the Harvard women’s team beat Stanford in the NCAA tournament in 1998.
On Monday, Cornell became the first Ancient Eight team since Princeton in 1998 to break into the top 25 of a national poll by being ranked No. 25 in the ESPN/USA Today Poll. It was the first national ranking for the Big Red in 59 years, and it was well deserved. Cornell has beaten major conference foes such as Alabama and St. John’s, played tough games against Kansas and Syracuse on the road, and absolutely dismantled Harvard—the only team people thought could challenge the Big Red—this past weekend. Currently, the Big Red’s RPI (Relative Power Index) is 33rd in the nation, which means that Cornell has played some of the toughest competition in the nation and won on many occasions.
Why, then, is Cornell’s success—which has come at the detriment of Columbia—so exciting for me? I gave that question some thought, and it ultimately came down to this: A strong team in the Ivy League, even if it’s one that I generally do not like, gives recognition and credibility to the rest of the league. It shows the rest of the country that the Ivy League isn’t just a two-bit conference full of subpar talent. Rather, there are athletes at these eight schools that can compete with the best of the best.
When it comes to Columbia, having a strong opponent in the league might hurt its ability to recruit against those teams. However, if the league as a whole has a higher level of credibility and prestige as a result of there being a great team in the mix, better players might be more likely to consider playing in the Ivy League rather than going to a different school in a mid-major conference. Thus, it follows that if one team wins, the league as a whole could benefit.
While I would still rank Cornell as one of the Ivy schools I dislike the most, I can’t help but root for the Big Red basketball team this season. That sounds a little surprising, even to me, but that’s another thing that I love about sports—they can always surprise you. Happy Super Bowl weekend, everybody!
Matt Velazquez is a Columbia College senior majoring in history.
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