Columbia Lions | |
---|---|
University | Columbia University |
Conference | Ivy League (primary) Other conferences: |
NCAA | Division I (FCS) |
Athletic director | Peter Pilling |
Location | New York, New York |
Varsity teams | 31 |
Football stadium | Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium |
Basketball arena | Levien Gymnasium |
Baseball stadium | Hal Robertson Field at Phillip Satow Stadium |
Soccer stadium | Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium |
Lacrosse stadium | Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium |
Other venues | Blue Gym |
Mascot | Roar-ee the Lion |
Nickname | Lions |
Fight song | Roar, Lion, Roar |
Colors | Columbia blue and white [1] |
Website | gocolumbialions |
The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is Peter Pilling.
Intercollegiate sports at Columbia date to the foundation of the baseball team in 1867. [2] [3] Men's association football (i.e. soccer) followed in 1870, and men's crew in 1873.
Men's Crew was one of Columbia's best early sports, and in 1878 the Columbia College Boat Club was the first foreign crew to win a race at the Henley Royal Regatta—considered to be Columbia's greatest athletic achievement. [4]
The third-ever men's intercollegiate soccer match was played between Columbia and Rutgers University, with Rutgers winning 6 to 3. Columbia joined the American football movement soon after Harvard and Yale played their first game in 1875—in 1876, Columbia, Harvard and Princeton University formed the Intercollegiate Football Association. [5] In addition, the Lions' wrestling team is the nation's oldest.
The Columbia football team won the Rose Bowl in 1934, upsetting Stanford University 7–0. Columbia also hosted the first televised sporting event: on May 17, 1939, the fledgling NBC network filmed the baseball double-header of the Light Blue versus the Princeton University Tigers at Columbia's Baker Field at the northernmost point in Manhattan. [6]
The eight-institution athletic league to which Columbia University belongs, the Ivy League, also includes Brown University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University. The Ivy League conference sponsors championships in 33 men's and women's sports and averages 35 varsity teams at each of its eight universities. The League provides intercollegiate athletic opportunities for more men and women than any other conference in the United States. All eight Ivy schools are listed in the top 20 NCAA Division I schools in number of sports offered for both men and women.
Men's sports | Women's sports |
---|---|
Baseball | Archery |
Basketball | Basketball |
Cross country | Cross country |
Football | Field hockey |
Golf | Golf |
Heavyweight rowing | Lacrosse |
Lightweight rowing | Rowing |
Soccer | Soccer |
Squash | Softball |
Swimming and diving | Squash |
Tennis | Swimming and diving |
Track and field† | Tennis |
Wrestling | Track and field† |
Volleyball | |
Co-ed sports | |
Fencing | |
† – Track and field includes both indoor and outdoor |
The women's archery team became a varsity sport at Barnard in 1978 [7] and was absorbed into the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium when Columbia College became co-educational in 1983. Archers compete in both the recurve (Olympic) and compound divisions. Until 2003, the team consisted exclusively of walk-ons with little prior experience; as of 2020, most archers are recruited similar to other varsity sports. Columbia also fields a club-level archery team for male archers and female students interested in learning the sport. [8]
Columbia won outdoor national championships in 2005 (recurve), 2008 (recurve), 2011 (recurve), 2013 (recurve), 2015 (recurve and compound), 2017 (recurve and compound) and 2018 (compound). [9]
In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, five Lions archers were named to the Collegiate Archery All-American team. [10]
The Lions compete in the Ivy League, which is part of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision.
Columbia was one of the first schools to take up the game; Columbia's 1870 contest with Princeton was the first football game played between future Ivy League Schools and their contest against Rutgers that same year was the fourth intercollegiate football game ever played. [11]
During the first half of the 20th century the Columbia Lions were a national power and at times the best football program in the nation. The 1875 squad was named National Champion and the 1915 squad went undefeated and untied. [12] The 1933 edition of the Lions won an unofficial national championship by upsetting the top-ranked Stanford Indians 7–0 in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day 1934. Lou Little, who coached the team from 1930 to 1956, is in the College Football Hall of Fame. Pro and College Football Hall of Fame inductee, Sid Luckman, an NFL MVP and 4-Time NFL Champion played his entire college football career at Columbia. Lou Gehrig additionally played for the Columbia Lions during this period.
Between 1983 and 1988, a period of financial instability for New York City and Columbia University, the Lions lost 44 games in a row. The streak was broken with a 16–13 victory over archrival Princeton. That was the Lions' first victory at Wien Stadium (which was already four years old, having been opened during the streak). [13]
Pro Football Hall of Famer Sid Luckman played his college ball at Columbia, graduating in 1938. Luckman is also in the College Football Hall of Fame. [14] Other Lions to have success in the NFL include offensive lineman George Starke, the Washington Redskins' "Head Hog," during the 1970s and 1980s, quarterback John Witkowski in the 1980s, and defensive lineman Marcellus Wiley in the 1990s. Perhaps the most famous personality associated with Lions football was a running back who had limited success on the field: the writer Jack Kerouac left school and went on the road after one injury-marred season at Columbia. Another Lions back who became legendary for his accomplishments off the gridiron was baseball great Lou Gehrig, who was a two-sport star at Columbia.
Norries Wilson is the first African-American head coach in the history of Ivy League football. He served as the Lions' head coach from 2005 to 2011. Former Penn Quakers football coach Al Bagnoli became Columbia's head coach on February 23, 2015.
Columbia and Cornell play for the Empire Cup, emblematic for Ivy League supremacy in New York State. Since 2018, they have played each other in their season finale.
Season | Bowl | Champion | Runner-Up | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1934 | Rose Bowl | Columbia | 7 | Stanford | 0 |
Lou Gehrig played college baseball at Columbia (he joined the New York Yankees in 1923, after his sophomore season) as well as Hall of Fame inductee Eddie Collins. In 1939 the first live televised sporting event in the United States, was a Columbia versus Princeton baseball game, broadcast from Baker Field in New York City. [15] [16] Other Columbia Lions who have gone on to play in Major League Baseball include Gene Larkin and Fernando Perez. The team plays at Hal Robertson Field at Phillip Satow Stadium, located at the northern tip of Manhattan.
Columbia was one of the first schools to take up basketball. The Lions' rivalry with the Yale Bulldogs is the longest continuous rivalry in NCAA college basketball (tied with the Yale-Princeton rivalry): the two teams have played each other for 108 seasons in a row, going back to the 1901–1902 season.
The Lions were retroactively recognized as the pre-NCAA Tournament 1904 and 1905 national champions by the Premo-Porretta Power Poll, and as the 1904, 1905 and 1910 national champions by the Helms Athletic Foundation. [17]
During the years just before the Ivy League formally became a sports conference, the Lions made it to "March Madness" on two occasions. In 1948, they were one of eight teams in the tournament, losing in the East regional semifinal to the eventual champion Kentucky. The 1951 team went undefeated in the regular season and were one of the 16 teams invited to the championship. The Lions lost 79–71 to eventual semi-finalist Illinois for a final record of 21–1 (best record in the nation that year with win–loss percentage of .956). [18] The 1951 team is, however, sadly best known for the tragic story of its brilliant but troubled star forward Jack Molinas, who eventually ended up in prison for crimes related his longtime involvement with gambling and who was murdered in 1975 in what appeared to be an organized crime-related assassination. Molinas still holds several school scoring records.
In 1957 Chet Forte was a consensus All-American and UPI player of the year for the NCAA University Division (which was replaced in 1973 by NCAA Division I); he averaged 28.9 points (fifth in the nation). He is even more famous for his later work as a producer for ABC Sports, especially on the program Monday Night Football . [18] The 1957 team had 2,016 rebounds, fourth highest in NCAA Division I history, even though they played only 24 games. [18]
The Lions have only won the official Ivy League championship once, in 1968, when they reached the "Sweet Sixteen" in the NCAA national tournament. Two members of the 1968 team went on to play professional basketball: Jim McMillian and Dave Newmark. (NFL great George Starke was also a member of the Lions' basketball team in that era.) Jack Rohan was voted Coach of the Year in 1968.
The Lions had a powerful squad in the late 1970s, even though they never won the Ivy League championship or made it to post-season play. In 1979, the diminutive point guard Alton Byrd won the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award, given to the best player under 6 feet (180 cm) in height. [18] Byrd never made it to the NBA, but he moved on to a legendary career in European pro basketball.
Until the 1980s, the women's basketball team (like the other women's teams) was known as the Barnard Bears, playing under the aegis of Columbia's affiliated undergraduate women's college, Barnard College. When Columbia College went co-ed in 1983, the schools formed the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium, and today all Barnard athletes compete on Columbia teams.
The women's basketball team joined the Ivy League in 1986–1987, and for many years were a perennial cellar dweller, reaching their low point in 1994–1995, when they went 0–26. They had never finished higher than fourth in the league standings in their first 23 seasons. In 2009–2010, however, they finished third, putting together a 9–5 record in the Ivy League, and, at 18–10 overall, their first winning season.
Columbia's soccer program traces its origins to the same Columbia-Rutgers game that the gridiron football program counts as its first contest. (The 1870 Columbia-Rutgers game was played by a set of rules which combined elements of present-day soccer and rugby.) The Lions soccer team has a long history of success, spanning three centuries, highlighted by national collegiate championships in 1909 and 1910 (Intercollegiate Soccer Football League), and a second-place finish in the 1983 NCAA championship. [19] [20] Dieter Ficken was named NSCAA Coach of the Year in 1983 after the Lions' 1–0 double-overtime finals loss to seven-time champion Indiana University. [20] Eighteen Lions players have been first-team all-Americans, and Amr Aly earned the 1984 Hermann Trophy national player of the year award.
The women's team was the 2006 Ivy League champions. In 2016, the men's soccer team were Co-Ivy League Champions.
The Blue Gym (or University Gym) is home to the Columbia Lions fencing team, located within the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on campus.
Columbia University had a team early on in the American intercollegiate ice hockey circuit. Columbia had a team organized already during the 1896–97 season and during the 1897–98 campaign the university appeared in the Intercollegiate Hockey Association (IHA) alongside teams from Yale, Brown, and University of Pennsylvania, [27] and the school was continuously represented in organized ice hockey league games against other Ivy League institutions (Yale, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell) up until the mid-1910s.
As of 2020, Columbia does not have a varsity ice hockey team. Columbia does participate at the club level, competing in the American Collegiate Hockey Association. [28] [29]
Columbia's first intercollegiate regatta dates back to 1873, when it raced a six-oared shell in Springfield, Massachusetts. [30] The next year, Columbia won the intercollegiate title at Saratoga. [30]
Historical note:
1976 – First and only female varsity athlete at Columbia (before Columbia College began admitting women): Annemarie McCoy competed against the Lions' opponents. [59] Thanks to Title IX, all Columbia University students (including those women from The School of Engineering and Applied Science) were eligible for Columbia athletic programs—and so McCoy was able to stay afloat with her teammates.
Dating back to 1903, wrestling has a history at Columbia. Since 2016, Zach Tanelli has been head coach of the Lions wrestling team which currently competes in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) Conference. Columbia has had 19 EIWA Conference Champions and five NCAA All-Americans, most recently Matt Palmer, who placed 8th in 2005 and 2007, and Steve Santos who placed 3rd in 2013 at the NCAA Wrestling Championships. [63] The Blue Gym (or University Gym) is home to the Columbia Lions wrestling team, located within the Dodge Physical Fitness Center on campus.
Columbia University was founded in 1754 and currently fields 31 co-ed, men's and women's teams. Women's teams are cooperatively organized with the affiliated Barnard College. [64]
All Columbia teams compete at the Division I level in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The school's football team competes at the NCAA Division I FCS level.
In 1910, the school adopted the lion mascot as a reference to the institution's royal past. [65] [66] The university was originally named King's College since its charter in 1754 by King George II of Great Britain. It became Columbia College in 1784, after the American Revolution. It became Columbia University in 1896 with the move to its current location in Upper Manhattan.
The Lions have produced such notable athletes as:
The Harvard Crimson is the nickname of the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country. Like the other Ivy League colleges, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships.
The Wisconsin Badgers Crew is the rowing team that represents the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Rowing at the University dates back to 1874. The women's openweight team is an NCAA Division I team. The men's and lightweight women's programs compete at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Championship Regatta because the NCAA does not sanction a men's or lightweight women's national championship. Chris Clark has been the men's head coach since 1996 and Bebe Bryans was the women's head coach from 2004-2023.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
The Cornell Big Red is the informal name of the sports and other competitive teams that represent Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The university sponsors 37 varsity sports, and several intramural and club teams. Cornell participates in NCAA Division I as part of the Ivy League.
The Dartmouth College Big Green are the varsity and club athletic teams representing Dartmouth College, an American university located in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth's teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Ivy League conference, as well as in the ECAC Hockey conference. The college offers 34 varsity teams, 17 club sports, and 24 intramural teams. Sports teams are heavily ingrained in the culture of the college and serve as a social outlet, with 75% of the student body participating in some form of athletics.
Stephen C. Gladstone is an American rowing coach and former college athletics administrator. He is the Head Coach for the Men's Heavyweight Crew Team at the United States Naval Academy. He was the head coach for the men's heavyweight crew team at Yale University from 2010-2023 and was the team's assistant coach from in 2024. Previously, Gladstone coached at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also served as athletic director.
The Poughkeepsie Regatta was the annual championship regatta of the U.S. Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) when it was held in Poughkeepsie, New York from 1895 to 1949.
The Fordham Rams are the varsity sports teams for Fordham University. Their colors are maroon and white. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference for most sports. In football, the Rams play in the Patriot League of NCAA Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision. The University also supports a number of club sports, and a significant intramural sports program. The University's athletic booster clubs include the Sixth Man Club for basketball and the Afterguard for sailing.
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the NCAA fulfills this role for women's open weight rowing. It is the direct successor to the Rowing Association of American Colleges, the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, which operated from 1870–1894.
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The University of Toronto Rowing Club (UTRC) was founded on February 10, 1897 and represents the Varsity Blues at local and international regattas. It is the oldest university rowing club in Canada.
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Christopher Kerber is an American lightweight rower. He won a gold medal at the 1993 World Rowing Championships in Račice with the lightweight men's four. Kerber is currently the Head Coach of Men’s Rowing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Prior to Hobart, Kerber coached in numerous programs, including Cornell Lightweights and LaSalle College High School in Philadelphia. Kerber’s Cornell lightweight varsity eights won the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) national championship in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019. His teams won the Jope Cup in 2014 and 2015.
The first televised sporting event was a college baseball game between Columbia and Princeton in 1939, covered by one camera providing a point of view along the third base line.
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