| Columbia Lions | |
| University | Columbia University |
|---|---|
| Conference(s) | Ivy League |
| Division I | |
| Athletics director | M. Dianne Murphy |
| Location | New York City, NY |
| Varsity teams | 29 |
| Football stadium | Wien Stadium |
| Basketball arena | Levien Gymnasium |
| Baseball stadium | Robertson Field |
| Soccer stadium | Columbia Soccer Stadium |
| Lacrosse stadium | Wien Stadium |
| Mascot | Roaree the Lion |
| Nickname | Lions |
| Fight song | Roar, Lion, Roar |
| Colors | Columbia blue and white
|
| Homepage | Columbia Lions |
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 M. Dianne Murphy.
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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.
Columbia University was founded in 1754 and currently fields 29 co-ed, men’s, and women’s teams. Women's teams are cooperatively organized with the affiliated Barnard College. 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.
It is believed that the school adopted the nickname "Lions" as a reference to the institution's royal past. The University was originally named King's College since its charter in 1754 by King George II of England. The lion is the animal depicted on the English coat of arms. Only after the American Revolution was King's finally renamed Columbia University.
Intercollegiate sports at Columbia date to the foundation of the baseball team in 1867. 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 non-English school to win a race at the Henley Royal Regatta. 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.[1] 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.[2]
Baseball, Basketball, Cross Country, Golf, Lacrosse, Heavyweight Rowing, Lightweight Rowing, Soccer, Swimming and Diving, Tennis, Track and Field, Football and Wrestling.
Archery, Women's Basketball, Cross Country, Fencing, Field Hockey, Women's Golf, Lacrosse, Women's Rowing, Women's Soccer, Softball, Women's Swimming and Diving, Women's Tennis, Track and Field, and Volleyball,
Columbia University hosts one of the oldest and most storied traditions of athletics in the United States.[3]
Columbia was one of the first schools to take up the game; Columbia's 1870 contest with Rutgers was the second intercollegiate football game ever played.[4]
The Lions compete in the Ivy League, which is part of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-AA).
The football program unfortunately is best known for its record of futility set during the 1980s: between 1983 and 1988, the team lost 44 games in a row, which is still the record for the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. The streak was broken on October 8, 1988, 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).[5] Even before the streak, the Lions had long been regarded as one of the worst football teams in the country.
The program was much more successful in the first half of the 20th century, and was at times a national power. The 1915 squad went undefeated and untied.[6] 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 Years Day 1934.[7] Lou Little, who coached the team from 1930 to 1956, is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
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.[8] 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.
| 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 Vs Princeton baseball game, broadcast from Baker Field in New York City. Other Columbia Lions who have gone on to play in Major League Baseball include Gene Larkin and Fernando Perez.
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 the unofficial national collegiate champions in 1904, 1905, and 1910, based on the Helms Foundation rankings. The 1903-1904 and 1904-1905 teams went undefeated.[9]
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)[9] 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 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.[9] The 1957 team had 2,016 rebounds, fourth highest in NCAA Division I history, even though they played only 24 games.[9]
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 in height.[9] 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.[10][11] 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.[11] 18 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.
The Lions have produced such notable athletes as:
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