Somehow, I find myself feeling optimistic about the upcoming year in Columbia athletics. I say somehow because the horrific taste left in the mouths of Lions fans by the football, basketball, and baseball squads still lingers. And for good reason, as Columbia fans were treated to three of the most comically brutal season conclusions imaginable last year.
The fat lady made her first proverbial appearance last year in Providence to announce the end of the football campaign. I remember the game well, as I was sitting in the press box on that frigid afternoon doing color commentary for WKCR. In my pregame analysis, I excitedly pointed out the fact that the Lions were 2-2 with M.A. Olawale at the helm, and played up the fact that his big-play ability gave the Lions a chance to end Brown’s bid to capture their share of the Ivy League title.
Just as I optimistically predicted, Olawale broke a seventy yard run in the first quarter to tie the game at seven, and Columbia looked set to play spoiler. Then I watched in horror as it all fell apart. Three straight scores gave Brown a comfortable 24-7 lead. Then, Olawale was knocked out of the game with an injury at the same time that his backup quarterback forgot which team he was on, leading to two prompt turnovers to start the second half. As the game ended and Brown celebrated another conference championship, I remember thinking to myself, “What did we do to deserve such a devastating end to this season?” Unfortunately, the worst had yet to come.
Many more Columbia fans were in attendance for the second season-ending shocker of the year in Levien Gymnasium. The back-story for this one was even more intriguing, as the Lions had emerged during the course of the season to become perhaps the best home team in the Ivy League, sitting at 5-1 in Manhattan entering the final day of the season. Excited fans packed Levien that night, as they had all year, ready for the completion of an epic Princeton-Penn sweep that would give the basketball program its first season above .500 since the late seventies.
Now let’s fast forward to 0:03 of the second half. Noruwa Agho is at the line with one free throw attempt left and the Lions lead by 2. Agho misses, allowing Penn to gain possession and call timeout with 1.9 ticks left. The ensuing inbounds pass finds Penn senior Kevin Egee who proceeds to launch the last jump shot of his collegiate career from 35 feet out and SWOOSH! The crowd watches in shock as the Quakers celebrate and the silence in the gym is filled by the incessant moans of some overweight woman, sitting behind the Penn bench, belting Fight on, Pennsylvania. Apparently, the fat lady does not always sing opera.
Yet, perhaps the most disappointing of all the anticlimactic season conclusions occurred on the final weekend of the baseball season. Columbia, the defending champs of the Ancient Eight, actually had a chance at gaining a birth to the Ivy League Championship Series entering their four game set with lowly Penn despite underperforming for most of the year. The Lions needed to take all four games from the Quakers and to have Cornell and Princeton split their series, a scenario that seemed extremely possible. After confidently taking the first game of the set, however, the Lions tanked, losing the second game of the home doubleheader and getting swept in Philadelphia the following day. Interestingly, the Quakers won more Ivy games that weekend (3) than they had during the entire rest of the season (2). To add insult to injury, Princeton and Cornell split, making this season-ending catastrophe the first of the year to have championship implications for the Lions.
Agony aside, looking back on the past athletic season has allowed me to see why it was so uniquely painful: the presence of hope. The football team was transformed when Olawale took over at quarterback, and the team was 2-1 at home in the league this past year. The basketball squad was a miracle away from its best season in thirty years, and the baseball team could have (and honestly should have) secured a chance to play for its second consecutive Ivy League Championship with a strong performance on the final weekend. Now how many Columbia classes have witnessed such promise in a single athletic year?
This brings me back to my excitement toward this year’s athletic endeavors, beginning with the imminent football season. The Lions have an advantage this season over their four toughest Ivy opponents (Penn, Yale, Harvard, Brown), as they get all four at home. Combine this with the fact that Columbia’s three league road trips will all be winnable games (Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth), and you are potentially looking at a full slate of competitive Ancient Eight contests for the Lions.
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