Football Team
Columbia's football team is well-known for its dismal performance in recent decades. However, since the arrival of coach Norries Wilson, things have been looking better.
The football team is the most important sporting component of Columbia's membership in the Ivy League.
Contents
Facilities
The team plays its home games at the beautiful, bucolic, bilateral, urbane, multicultural, eleemosynary, yet still iconoclastic Lawrence A. Wien Stadium at Baker Field on 218th Street in the Inwood section of Manhattan.
History
Early history
Columbia's college football team was formed in 1870. They played against Yale in 1872 in one of the first ever intercollegiate football games. However, University President Nicholas Murray Butler banned the sport from 1905 to 1915, claiming it was too rowdy.
First half of 20th century
During the first half of the 20th century, the Lions enjoyed consistent success on the gridiron. Between at least 1934 and 1947, the team was coached by Lou Little. In 1934, the team won the Rose Bowl against Stanford, in what was the precursor to the national championship. In 1947, the squad won a match agaisnt the cadets of Army, who were the defending national champions and hadn't lost a game in four years. They then won 32 consecutive games, one of the most stunning winning streaks of the century. Famous players included Luckman, an All-American quarterback who went on to lead the Chicago Bears to four NFL championships in the 1940s.
1960s to 1990s
In 1961, the team shared their only Ivy League title with Harvard. However, since then, the football team has enjoyed just three winning seasons: 6-3 in 1971, 5-4-1 in 1994, and 8-2 in 1996. In the 1980s, the team experienced a record 44-game losing streak. The jubilation that ensued upon the end of this nightmare was possibly the largest outbreak of school spirit ever seen at Columbia.
These losses are attributed to several reasons. First, the practice facilities at Baker Athletics Complex are far away from the main campus in Morningside Heights. Second, there is weak support because the student body is more often interested in all the other diversions in Manhattan. And third, coaches find it hard to recruit potential football players given Columbia's lack of a winning tradition.
Recent history
Liberty Cup
A bright spot in recent Columbia football history has been the Liberty Cup. Dedicated in 2002, the annual competition with crosstown rival Fordham University has proved popular among students at both schools, the only Division I-AA programs in New York. Columbia leads the series, 3-2.
Bakergate
In 2005, the athletics administration tried to ban alcohol at football games in a scandal that became known as Bakergate. This proved unwise and unsuccessful. (Some say they reintroduced limited alcohol consumption because no one could rationally cheer for Columbia while sober!)
Recent upturn under Norries Wilson
In 2005, Columbia fired the old coach and hired Norries Wilson as his replacement. Wilson had been a runner-up for national assistant coach of the year while at the University of Connecticut in 2004. He is the latest head coach brought in to try to turn the program around. By 2006, the squad had vastly improved and notched a 5-5 campaign, with two victories to close out the year against Cornell and Brown. This was the program's first .500-or-better season in 10 years. Wilson, along with his staff, have restored pride in the Columbia football program and, by all indications, have the proverbial ship pointed in the right direction.
Columbia has had five graduates on NFL rosters in the last year – more than any other Ivy school. They are: Marcellus Wiley '97, Steve Cargile '04, Jeff Otis '05, Wade Fletcher '05 and Michael Quarshie '05.
Trivia
- An early Columbia-Princeton game was the first live televised sporting event.
- Football players sometimes come back to speak at Columbia College Class Day.
