Senior Class Lays Foundation for Future

For 12 Columbia football players—12 players who stuck with the team through three head coaches and no winning seasons—this past weekend was bittersweet.

The 12 players stuck together from the very beginning, staying with the program all four years. Over their time, they have a combined record of 9-31 (3-25 Ivy). The record alone, however, is an unfair measure of their importance to the Lions.

In the final home game for these seniors on Saturday, they proved their worth to the program. Despite the fact that Brown came away victorious, the Columbia seniors and their will to win led the Light Blue to attempt a comeback in the second-half. Though their efforts fell short—Columbia lost, 30-22—it was indicative of the strength of their resolve and their drive to succeed.

Columbia head coach Norries Wilson applauded the seniors for their commitment.
“They finished what they started,” Wilson said. “We have some kids who are seniors on this team ... [whose] friends quit the football team a long time ago. They could have easily packed it in and gone and hung out with their friends on those long afternoons, those cold afternoons, those hot afternoons ... We’ve got seniors who saw young guys who were doing the wrong thing and they pulled them along and showed them how to do the right thing. As a group, I’d say, this group of seniors has done a good job.”

These players have never been able to celebrate a win in a homecoming game. They have not had a winning season, and have only broke even once. Despite this, they stayed with the program and worked to make it better.

The group of seniors, according to Wilson, is one that has “a variety of stories.” Each player made a unique contribution to the program.

“We had seniors who missed their senior year and came back and played another senior year, like Bayo Aregbe,” Wilson said. “And maybe they got hurt and could have packed it in, and they stayed out there. We’ve got seniors that didn’t play a lot, Thomas Weldon, who every day, every means, without exception, every day at practice cheered for his teammates and got on his teammates when they made mistakes, and only hoped we would score so he could go out there and be the wing on PAT, and he never wanted to be out there on kickoff return because that meant that we got scored against.”

These players and these stories are the basis of the Columbia football team. Though the Lions have been through some turbulent times, this year was the first that no players quit the team during the season. This fact alone bodes well for the future of the football program and is a testament both to where the program can go and to the seniors who paved the way.