Lions Need Pride Against Dartmouth

Perhaps the doubters were right.

After an impressive showing at Princeton in which the team was able to put up 32 points on the defending Ivy champions, Columbia has suffered two straight blowout losses. A 29-0 shutout at Lafayette was followed by a halftime score of 45-7 against Penn. It was awkward, to say the least, to watch the Robert Kraft Field dedication at halftime, with videos talking of Ivy success blaring on the big screen.

And it’s not like Columbia achieved something against teams that are doing well. Princeton has a two-game losing streak heading into this weekend’s game at Harvard, while the hapless Marist Red Foxes just won their first game of the season last week. Maybe it’s the same old Columbia after all.

But while an outside observer like me is free to have such thoughts, I am praying that the team saves such musings until after the season.

If one picks apart the situation like I have above, the situation looks hopeless. And maybe it is. After shaky starts to their seasons, traditional powers Harvard and Penn are doing much better. Yale looks to be pretty much unstoppable. And Brown looks like it will hang tough with all its Ivy opponents. A cynical glance at the league standings shows few winnable games left for the Lions, let alone any upward mobility.

But athletics isn’t in the realm of rationality. No one thought last year’s team would win any games after losing to Dartmouth. But the 2006 Lions were a tough squad that had taken a lot of lumps. They kept pressing, and ended up salvaging two Ivy wins on the season. The team was able to take the season one game at a time, realizing that a loss is a loss, and that losing by one point or 30 doesn’t change the numbers in the win-loss columns.

Most members of the 2007 Lions haven’t been tempered by the full experience of the Bob Shoop years, and being down more than five touchdowns to a 1-3 team at halftime will take the wind out of anyone’s sails. It is now up to the senior leadership of the team to point the squad towards last year’s team. Equaling last year’s 2-5 conference record may sound laughable, but given the current talent and inexperience of the team, it’s a realistic goal to pursue. The toughness and experience the team would build out of this pursuit will be a bonus whenever it is actually ready to compete.

Thus, no matter how embarrassing last Saturday was, Columbia needs to have its head up, starting this weekend in Hanover. Dartmouth isn’t exactly a contender itself; its last two losses have been by 40 and 36 points, respectively. This means the Big Green will make mistakes, and if there’s one thing Columbia can do when it believes in itself, it is punishing the opposition’s miscues.

It’s true that there’s always next year, but the confidence needed to succeed next year comes right now. There are often complaints about the lack of school spirit on this campus. But for the students to show pride in the football team, this team needs to show pride in itself first.