Ivy League Sports

Ivy League and Athletes

There’s a great op-ed in “The Columbia Spectator” by first-year student Josh Fram in which he writes about why athletes belong in the Ivy League. In the op-ed, Fram writes about how athletes on Columbia’s campus are often asked, “Oh…so you’re an athlete?” With this question, it’s implied that student-athletes aren’t as good academically as are non-athletes. According to the op-ed, “Objectively, it is clear that these sentiments are based in truth. A 2007 study conducted by sociologists Douglas Massey and Margarita Mooney shows that Ivy League athletes scored on average 93 points lower than non-athletes on the SAT. They reported a similar discrepancy with regard to high school GPAs. And according to James Shulman and William Bowen’s book ‘The Game of Life,’ published in 2002, these same trends persist in college.”

Ivy League athletes often become quite successful in the real world after college. Josh Fram has a great piece about this in “The Columbia Spectator.”

But others argue that student-athletes are more successful after college than their non-athlete peers. They’ve worked as member of teams. They’ve held leadership positions. They understand their role. These are some of the things that are inherently intwined with sport. And shouldn’t a highly selective college seek out students who they think will be successful after college? After all, don’t they want to admit the next President of the United States and CEO of IBM and founder of the next big startup? You bet. As referenced in the op-ed, “But as former Harvard Dean of Admissions William Bender famously proclaimed, ‘If you let in only the brilliant, then you produce bookworms and bench scientists; you end up as socially irrelevant as the University of Chicago.’”

What do you think would happen to a university if they admitted only students with perfect SAT scores and grades? Do you think they’d be more or less likely to pick the next President of the United States? Do you think the college would be stronger or weaker for this decision? Let us know your thoughts on the matter by posting below!

Harvard Superstar

Harvard Star, Harvard University Superstar, Harvard Star Athlete

Are there other overlooked players who could be pro sensations on Ivy League sports teams? Jeremy Lin makes you think there might be.

Harvard superstar Jeremy Lin’s story is just getting started. If you thought his numbers were going to drop when Amar’e Stoudemire returned to the lineup for the Knicks, you’d be mistaken. With Amar’e back last night against the Toronto Raptors, Jeremy Lin delivered perhaps his best performance yet. While torching Kobe’s Lakers for 38 points was impressive, last night, Jeremy Lin hit the game-winning three-point bucket to seal the Knicks’ sixth straight win — on the Raptors’ home court no less. It was a come-from-behind thriller orchestrated by the Harvard superstar.

For all the doubters who feel the sample size is too small to proclaim Lin a phenom just yet, Jeremy Lin continues to dazzle. He dished out a career high 11 assists last night to go along with 27 points on 9 for 20 shooting. He has become a floor general for the Knicks, the likes of which they’ve been needing for years — since the 80′s on Mark Jackson’s first stint in New York. Not Chris Childs, not Charlie Ward, surely not Stephon Marbury, not Nate Robinson, not Chauncey Billups…none of them proved to be the answer to the Knicks’ decades-long search for a quality point guard. But Harvard superstar Jeremy Lin seems to be that answer.

Do you think that there are other players who could become professional sensations overlooked in the Ivy League? Do you think pro scouts will now pay more attention to the Ancient Eight since Jeremy Lin has become such a global sensation? Do you think that Jeremy Lin is the exception to the rule or are there others like him in Cambridge, Hanover, New Haven, Ithaca, etc.? Let us know your thoughts on the subject by posting below. At The Ivy Coach, as you can see, we’ve got the Linsanity bug like the rest of the world!

Athletes from the Ivy League

What makes athletes from the Ivy League different from athletes from, say, the ACC, Big East, or SCC? Well, for one, Ivy League athletes don’t earn scholarships. They also have to meet certain admissions criteria (see our post on the Ivy League Academic Index) and they tend to be student-athletes more so than athletes who happen to also go to school. One great example of such an athlete is Andrew Goldstein, a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he played goalie on the lacrosse team and earned two honorable mention All-American nods.

Athletes from Ivy League, Ivy League Athletes, Athletes in Ivy League, Ivy League Athletics

Ivy League athletes like Andrew Goldstein are true examples of student-athletes with an emphasis on the student.

Andrew Goldstein is regarded as the first male professional team sport athlete in North America to be openly gay during his playing career. Goldstein played for two seasons of Major League Lacrosse – first with the Boston Cannons and then with the Long Island Lizards. Goldstein was openly gay at Dartmouth as this SportsCenter piece points out, a piece we at The Ivy Coach happened to have a whole lot to do with.

Since leaving lacrosse, Goldstein has become an outspoken advocate of not saying “gay” in a derogatory way in locker rooms. He’s also become a biology professor at UCLA and made a notable publication in the prestigious “Science” magazine by leading a team of researchers that found the possible cell of origin for prostate cancer. Wow.

Now that is an Ivy League athlete for you! Want to read more? Check out this piece on ESPN about the Ivy League athlete or this one on the historic nature of Goldstein’s example as an openly gay athlete.

Harvard Basketball

The Ivy League basketball season is about to kick into high gear. Sure, the eight Ivy League teams have been playing for a while now (they’re each over 10 games into their schedules) but they haven’t competed against each other quite yet…though that’s about to change. So which Ivy League basketball team is looking good coming into the Ivy League season? The answer would be Harvard, Harvard, Harvard. In fact, this year, Tommy Amaker’s Harvard basketball team looks like it belongs in the ACC more so than it does in the Ivy League!

Don't expect any Ivy League basketball team to compete with Harvard this year. They're quite simply in another class.

Harvard has beaten (and in many cases crushed) MIT, Holy Cross, Loyola Marymount, Utah (big win), Florida State (big win), UCF, Vermont (big win), Seattle, Boston University, Florida Atlantic University, and since we’ve published this post they’ve knocked out Boston College (big win) and St. Joseph’s (big win). They’ll play their first Ivy League foe on January 7th when they face Dartmouth at home but don’t expect much of a game as we don’t imagine any Ivy League basketball team will be competitive with Harvard this year. They’re quite simply that good!

In fact, according to an ESPN piece on the Harvard basketball team by Eamonn Brennan, “Harvard is the Ivy League favorite. This is not an insight. With so much talent in Tommy Amaker’s lineup, the Crimson have been the obvious preseason favorite to win their seemingly overmatched league since, oh, April…In other words, it will be no surprise to hear that when John Templon of the excellent NYC Buckets ran 10,000 simulations of the forthcoming Ivy League season, Harvard emerged as the heavy favorite…What may surprise you, however, is the sheer depth and breadth of Harvard’s apparent superiority. Of the 10,000 simulated seasons John projected, the Crimson won 9,508 of them — just over 95 percent. As John writes: ‘That’s incredible.’”

Check out this post on the Ivy League and NBA.

Yale University Football

The Yale football coach resigned because he lied about having applied for a Rhodes Scholarship.

Yale University head football coach Tom Williams resigned from his position yesterday morning. Alright, college and pro coaches get fired and resign just about every day…so why is this interesting? Well, it’s interesting because this Yale University football coach resigned because he lied about having applied for a Rhodes Scholarship. Remember when we posted about the Yale QB who was up for the Rhodes Scholarship and yet elected not to continue his candidacy because he wanted to quarterback his team in the Harvard-Yale game (“The Game”)? Well, that QB talked about discussions with his coach as he considered whether or not to continue to pursue the scholarship…since his coach had pursued the scholarship as a student and football player at Stanford years earlier.

The problem is that the Rhodes committee had no record of Tom Williams ever having applied for a Rhodes Scholarship. It simply wasn’t true. As it turns out, his Stanford coach, Bill Walsh, had encouraged him to apply for it but he opted not to, according to the “Yale Daily News” article on the Yale football coach. Not exactly a role model for his football players, eh?

So what’s our point in sharing this story with you? Don’t lie on your college applications. Don’t lie in your college essays. Don’t say you accomplished things that you didn’t (in this case, applying isn’t even an accomplishment)! It can come back to haunt you later. You just never know. And it’s just not right.

Ivy League Football

It’s time for an update on this year’s Ivy League football standings to date. Leading the Ivy League is Harvard University, sitting on a 5-0 league record as well as a 7-1 overall record. Right behind Harvard are Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, both with 4-1 league records. Brown holds a 7-1 overall record while Penn has a 5-3 overall record. After that is Yale University at 3-2 within the league and at 4-4 overall followed by Dartmouth College at 2-3 in the Ivy League and 3-5 overall. Rounding out the bottom of the Ivy League are Cornell University, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Cornell, at 1-4 in league play and 3-5 overall leads the bottom three with Princeton at 1-4 and 1-7 and Columbia winless at 0-5 and 0-8.

Ivy League Sports, Ivy Football, Ivy League Conference Football, Ivy League Division

Our dear friend, Cliff Montgomery, led Columbia University to a Rose Bowl victory in 1934. That was a long time ago. Columbia currently sits in last place in the Ivy League football standings.

Harvard has won seven straight games and Brown six straight. On the other side, Princeton has lost five straight games, while Columbia has lost eight in a row. It’s not a good year to be a Columbia Lion football player. So let’s cheer up Columbia fans with a bit of Columbia football history.

Did you know that the Columbia Lions won the 1934 Rose Bowl in a 7-0 upset over Stanford? It was largely considered to be one of the greatest athletic contests of the twentieth century. The game’s MVP was our dear friend, the late QB Cliff Montgomery – a veritable American hero who would go on to earn the Silver Star in WWII for saving the lives of 400 sailors at Okinawa. The Rose Bowl win may seem like a long time ago to Columbia University football fans. It sure was. But that doesn’t mean Columbia can’t turn things around on the gridiron…though this season is out! There’s no coming back from 0-8!

While you’re here, check out this post on the Ivy League and NFL.

Ivy League Athletics

A preseason poll forecasting the seasons of Ivy League football teams has come out this week and the University of Pennsylvania has been projected to win the Ivy League, collecting 12 of 17 first-place votes. Following Penn is Harvard and then Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton, and Cornell, respectively. Penn has won the last two Ivy League titles so it is no surprise that they’ve been projected to earn another championship. They also boast a 15-game winning streak in Ivy League play, a streak spanning over two football seasons.

And now for some Ivy League football trivia to get you ready for the upcoming season! Post your answers below!

- Which Ivy League college boats the most Ivy League football championships?

A.) Penn

B.) Harvard

C.) Cornell

D.) Dartmouth

- In one of the greatest upsets of the 20th century, this Ivy League college won the 1934 Rose Bowl over Stanford University thanks to a trick play known as KF-79 by QB and eventual MVP Cliff Montgomery.

A.) Cornell

B.) Columbia

C.) Harvard

D.) Princeton

- The starting QB for the Buffalo Bills attended this Ivy League college.

A.) Harvard

B.) Dartmouth

C.) Brown

D.) Yale

- Jay Fiedler starred at QB for this Ivy League university.

A.) Yale

B.) Dartmouth

C.) Columbia

D.) Princeton

Ivy League Athletes

Ivy League Athletics, Ivy League Sports, Athletics at Ivy League Colleges, Ivy League Admissions

In this chart from the "Daily Princetonian," it seems not all Ivy League athletic programs are created equal. Brown University and Columbia University have some catching up to do.

How do you think Brown’s athletic program compares to Princeton’s? How do the Big Green stack up against the Bulldogs? Well, if you’re judging these Ivy League athletes and programs based on how many Ivy League championships the universities earned in total this past academic year, then Princeton University is the runaway winner with fifteen Ivy League titles across both men’s and women’s varsity sports. In second place is Yale University with 7 titles followed by a three-way tie between Harvard, Cornell, and Penn with 4, Dartmouth with 2, and Brown and Columbia with 0. That’s right. Zero. From football to baseball to swimming to softball and crew, Brown and Columbia won a combined zero Ivy League championships this past year.

Check out our blog on Brown University Athletic Cuts and on Brown Athletic Recruitment difficulties to find out why Brown University might be behind the curve in Ivy League sports. What do you think Columbia and Brown can do to keep up with their Ivy League peers in athletics? Let us know your thoughts by posting below!

It may come as a surprise that Sydney Johnson, head coach of the men’s basketball team at Princeton University, has left Princeton to take the post of head coach of men’s basketball at Fairfield University. Why would Johnson leave his alma mater, a university he led to a share of the Ivy League title this year as well as a berth in the NCAA tournament (before falling 59-57 to an eventual Final Four team in the University of Kentucky)?

The answer is twofold. Johnson was making between $200,000 to $250,000 and the new job could pay him double that figure but speculation is he also left because while Harvard University has lowered its admissions standards for its men’s basketball team, Princeton University has failed to follow suit. Will Johnson’s departure inspire Princeton to lower its admissions standards for its men’s basketball recruits? Only time will tell.

Check out our posts on applicants to Princeton, college admissions and March Madness, and Princeton’s tournament berth.

Search

Categories

Newsletter Sign Up

Archive for: Ivy League Sports