My Last Words: Come Together Over Sports

“Hippies. They’re everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.”
—Eric Cartman

These powerful words spoken by a cartoon hero are the most fitting way to begin my final dissertation on sports and the Columbian. But first, I must distill the true intention of that powerful social statement: those who find themselves in the countercultural and anti-establishment lifestyle often begin with lofty goals that devolve into the base and irrelevant.

At Columbia we’ve rebranded these people—now they’re “activists.”

Every student at Columbia wants to be a part of something. We come to college hoping to figure out who we are, what we believe in, and give ourselves a purpose. We want to make friends—not just those we meet during orientation week, passing acquaintances bound more by newfound freedoms than substance. We want groups and the neat labels that come along with them.

Some of us have newspapers. Some have sports. Some have music. Some have acting.
Most have anger. It’s sometimes irrational, sometimes justified, and rarely productive. But the worst of us make that anger our activity. And activism against this school is its unfortunate identity.

On a national stage, we are known not only as a top-tier academic institution, but also as a bunch of spoiled and misguided dissidents who will shout at the top of our lungs towards an invisible opponent. Whether distinguished guests addressing students on graduation, or B-list actors, we just want something to oppose.

I’m not taking issue with dissent or action for meaningful change, but rather with the particular sort of protest we have here at Columbia. These people take their own personal beliefs too far, and impose it on others in an intrusive way in a public forum. It is an inherently selfish exercise, aimed at personal catharsis and a false sense of purpose.

The best example of that was this year’s hunger strike, which became a fixture on the front page of this newspaper and in campus gossip. Strikers’ demands were highlighted by a desire for an ethnic studies department, apparently such a pressing need that it was worth hijacking the campus’s attention. Compare that to Harvard, where a hunger strike was a focused attempt to improve the wages of campus security. Strike for financial aid, for better advising, but have a point that serves a higher purpose.

Because of 1968, and for reasons that I went through at length in my penultimate column, Columbia Athletics and Columbia Activism are forever linked.

I’ve put a lot of thought into how Columbia can end a story that, as one of my former editors and closest friends said, has been defined by tragedy. And I’ve realized that as long as this continues to be the identity of this university, there is no solution. Sports thrive from campus unity, not only creating it but also improving through it. Too many students at this school willingly jump at the opportunity to become an enemy of the administration.

Too many students here want to subdivide in as many ways as possible. They conflate issues when they take stands, limiting the inclusiveness of their groups. They want their small cliques instead of a larger community, and the University is worse off for it.

If Columbia wants to make that big leap as a school, if Columbia sports are to rise with it, the culture of the students must begin to change. I’m not trying to say that you can change the composition of the student body, nor is it really all that necessary. Most of us are sane, smart, and rational. We are ultimately grateful for a school that provides us with so much.

Yet we indulge and elevate the noise from students that should be marginalized and ignored. There is nothing about free speech that says you have to listen to it or respect it. Sometimes, people are wrong and we can laugh them off. The front pages of Spectator have always been reserved to highlight these protests, so I chose the sports section, and I’ll leave it to Earl Warren to explain why.

“I always turn to the sports section first. The sports section records people’s accomplishments; the front-page nothing but man’s failures.”

***

I have written this column, by my count, at least sixteen times.

It’s the only one I’ve started early for Spectator, and there’s been a few versions every semester since my sophomore year.

I’ve written a different opening paragraph every time, with a different quote from a famous author (or Calvin and Hobbes) to frame the thoughts that I’ve never quite let onto in these pages.

Sometimes I’m self-indulgent and nostalgic. I start out telling the story of how chance brought me to Spec Sports, how competitiveness kept me here, and how I managed not to eff this all up. Just some of it. But I can do that over a drink with the friends who lived through it with me, and that’s about the only audience that really cares.

Sometimes I try for humor. I tell my favorite stories about covering Columbia athletics, the closet fanatics, the over-enthusiastic bureaucrats, and the always dependable and infinitely entertaining losses. But Tom Boorstein brilliantly penned that column two years ago, chronicling a top-10 list of extraordinary failures. As I recall, we have the only programs that have perfected the come-from-ahead loss.

Sometimes I just rant. For 1500 words I scream at the top of my lungs everything wrong with this University. But that’s best left to the editorial board.

Sometimes I wander down a crooked, broken timeline through the past four years, picking the moments that make up college and preserving them for posterity. But that was always Jake Olson’s department.

I’ve never had a goal for this column, or rather there’s never been an overarching purpose that ties together every story I’ve told. I’ve been trying to find a reason why I’m writing sports—why I would jump on a plane to go watch a couple of baseball games in Florida, or cancel a date to watch the second half of a basketball game, or interrupt every dinner I’ve ever had to check the score on my phone.

Then I wonder about the role of sports in the Ivy League, and at Columbia.

In December of my freshman year, I read excerpts from a letter the head of Dartmouth admissions had written to the president of Swarthmore College to congratulate him on eliminating the school’s football program. His point was that the culture surrounding football was antithetical to the mission of elite academic institutions. A bitter and ignorant Spectator columnist made that point again, poorly, a few years ago.

Now I could be glib, and point out that the Ivy League is just an athletic conference and all that brand value comes from sports. But at its core I believe in a unifying potential in sports, because they’re ultimately insignificant yet so satisfying. Because they create the moments that make us look back on college fondly. Because they inspire people to come back to campus for homecoming, to give back to Columbia, to create opportunities for new students. Because they exhibit pride instead of hate.

I’ve found myself defending athletes on campus too many times to count. Yes, some of the stupidest kids on this campus are athletes. But so are some its most successful—future Olympians, Harvard medical school students, bankers, lawyers, politicians—even the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

And so it’s been a satisfying experience, even chronicling all these losses, because I believe that campus sports are an invaluable part of the college experience, and because athletes are an integral part of campus diversity.

Thankfully, I will not remember Columbia for its students’ activism. I’ll remember last-second wins and the thrills of victories. I will remember it for last calls, for late nights and later mornings. I’ll remember the people who were bright enough to keep up in any argument, get all riled up, and leave their feelings behind and buy the next round. I’ll remember it for the things that tie us all together, instead of the idiocy that threatens to tear us all apart.

***

Now that I’m no longer a burden, thanks (and a few no thanks) to editors, administrators, and athletes that put up with quite a bit, but particularly T.K. and D.C.

Thanks to Theo, never my editor but always my mentor. To Jake and Anna, for never letting the office get too serious. To Will and Lauréne, for telling better stories in their photos than I ever could in words. To Kartik, for loving Black Mamba. To Taylor, for owning a board and a pair of skis, and moving to the West Coast. To Jiadai, for keeping Auggie in line. To Chuckles, for never getting angry about that nickname. To Jacob, now on to bigger and more important things. To J-Tay, D-Max, and Auggie, for never realizing that they’re not seniors. To Lisa, Holly, and Matt, for reminding me that the best part about Spec are the friends you make.

To Scott, Josh, and Anand, for being those friends.

So there you go. I was self-indulgent, nostalgic, bitter and rant-filled, and sentimental all in 1500 words.

Jon Kamran is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics and Middle Eastern studies.
Sports@columbia.edu