In the latest in our Getting to Know series of interviews with Columbia staff members, Bwog newcomer Sylvie Krekow caught up with Malcolm Doldron, Assistant Coach for the women’s rowing team. Know someone you’d like us to interview? Send your suggestions to tips@bwog.com.

When did you first start coaching at Columbia?

I started in August 2007. I had just finished my second year as the intern varsity assistant coach at Princeton. We had a couple of awesome years, but I decided I wanted to go to a place like Columbia where they maybe hadn’t done a lot yet and try to see what I could do to help.

Why do you coach women instead of men?

[Laughs] I used to coach men. I was on a men’s team in college, obviously. I think initially [I coached women] because that’s what was needed. My first real competitive coaching job was at Thompson Boat Center in Washington, D.C, and at the time it was just a hotbed for women’s rowing. And then through that experience, I found that it was just easy to work with women. They’re a little more attentive. I also really like the aspect of having an NCAA championship – it adds a sense of closure to a season, because there’s a definitive national champion and there’s recognition.

Speaking of aspects of your job that you like, what’s your favorite part about being the assistant Columbia Women’s Rowing coach?

Honestly, I think it’s working with the athletes. I really enjoy spending time with the team, helping them meet the goals of the program and whatever individual goals they set. They’re all very hardworking, competitive, thoughtful people – it’s funny how much we see that competitive side, but on the flip side they’re also people. Getting to know them on a personal level can be really enlightening.

What’s the hardest part of your job?

Hmm… I think it’s that it’s a constant thing; it’s a 24-hour job. I work on the weekends, I work late at night, and there’s not really any time off. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not a traditional work schedule, for better or for worse. There’s nothing I hate about my job though, I love it.

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The Mapril issue of The Blue and White has finally come back from the printer. Look for its handsome cover in strategic locations around campus over the next two days. In today’s preview, Sam Schube finds out what happens when Columbia athletes throw in the towel.

In the world of Columbia athletics, your word is your bond. Since the Ivy conference forbids athletic scholarships in the name of academic integrity, students are not bound by the typical Division I bargain that guarantees tuition, room, and board in exchange for performance. This opens up a curious loophole: Ivy Leaguers are free to quit at any time, and members quit with surprising regularity. On the wrestling team, which has a particularly high rate of attrition, one team member estimated that up to 15 wrestlers have quit in the last three years.

“Around Christmas, team morale just goes down the shitter,” says former wrestler Mike Pushpak, CC ’11. Athletes are forced to sacrifice Christmas dinners and long January vacations to practice, an expectation that drains team morale during the height of the season. Rather than relax their expectations, the coaches have instituted a new “100 percent or zero percent” policy in response to low energy: if wrestlers aren’t willing to walk the tightrope that is Ivy League wrestling—and succeed at it—they are quickly removed from the team roster.

Part of giving 100 percent means maintaining what the team’s coaches call a “robust” academic schedule. The wrestling team admits recruits using “the Index,” a formula amalgamating a recruit’s various academic measures such as class rank, GPA, and, most importantly, SAT scores, to meet University requirements. “We have a kid who just broke 1,000,” says one wrestler who wished to remain anonymous, necessitating the odd 2300-scoring recruit who can “carry” the team’s SAT average. While the low-scorers can certainly give the required 100 percent on the mat, they tend to be left behind in the classroom, making the athletics-academics balance that much harder to maintain.

Certain players make it their duty to keep members from falling off the tightrope. A major part of this effort is the systematic identification of flagging members. “On a team where quitting is a problem, these kids continue the problem,” says another wrestler.

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One professor is miraculously able to be an academic, administrator and mother - without a Time Turner.

Another professor, after being educated around the world, pushes the limits of the normative, breaks ground on the topic of globalization, and successfully uses buzzwords while talking to the press.

Men’s soccer pushes the limits of the acceptable win percentage in a Columbia athletic program that does not involve sabers.

Columbia extending the football season might just be adding to the loss column, but at least we’d make some bucks!

Columbia’s still pushing their northern limits.  And some people are (still) not too excited about the idea.

Alan Brinkley is the most popular Columbia professor on Facebook.

Columbia is trying to “ameliorate” tensions with the community.

Columbia gets amazing athletic recruits, who eat McDonald’s every day, wear jeans so tight that their legs atrophy and smoke clove cigarettes. 

Statisticians: Here are all the sexy details about the rigorous lottery. 

Pity the first-year who did not witness the hunger strike and thus cannot fully understand the ramifications of the Global Core.

Embracing all things collegiate, Bwog joined the class of 2012 last night in Roone Arledge Auditorium for Class Act: Advance Screening.

Day One of NSOP challenged the wily troop of 12s with long lines, dorm room design, and familial farewells followed by awkward introductions and icebreakers.  But no odyssey draws to a close without its due reward. To initiate the 12s into dear alma mater, NSOP offered up an Class Act, an evening of campus tips and trivia and brazen leonine spirit.

As is tradition with all Columbia events, Class Act began a full half hour late. OLs and their charges kept busy with the multiple-choice quizlets projected on a screen at the front of the auditorium. Although this competitive and cognitive exercise quickly won the crowd’s attention, the first skit, featuring a cell phone toting personification of the Alma Mater statue, dragged on with repetitive, but well-received, nods to the new class.

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As those who watch the Olympics closely know, it abounds with the more obscure sports that only the Ivy League has enough money to field teams in. Not surprisingly, then, the Ivy League has fielded its fair share of Olympians over the years, even as other conferences have taken over the role of being the NBA and NFL’s minor leagues. There are enough, in fact, that somebody out in the Internets decided they deserve their own blog. Even less surprisingly, the historical medal count indicates what many a Columbian could have already guessed: Columbia has contributed only 35 Olympians and 13 medalists, significantly below the next lowest, Brown (51 Olympians and 25 medalists).That’s waking the echoes of the Hudson Valley. Still, Bwog wishes best of luck to the Columbians competing in dressage, the 400 meters, and, of course, fencing. Hopefully some of their events will actually be on in prime time.

Inexplicably, the Lions appear to be involved in a joint venture with Tic Tac at tonight’s game (they don’t say the sport in the hilarious press release, but Bwog will suppose it’s basketball). Coming soon: corporate naming rights for Baker Field? “Swish Undergraduate Athletics Center” has a nice ring to it.

Long story made short: apparently you can win ten grand by dancing around with Tic Tac containers. On a Friday night. If you start binge-drinking right now, you might shed enough dignity to try to participate in — we swear to God — “one of Morningside Heights’ more ‘earth shaking’ pop culture iconic moments.” If you show up, they’ll throw two or three more adjectives in that sentence. Just for you!

More in food news: Chipotle is arriving at the end of the month, and they’re courting Columbia students in a big way. The new shop’s advance team let Bwog know that on Wednesday, June 27, they’re holding a kickoff event to raise money for Columbia athletics–from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM, five bucks will get you a hefty burrito and a drink, and all the money goes to CU teams. We’ll remind you as the time approaches.

If food’s one way to our heart, and money’s another, flashy websites are a third (we squandered a good half hour on this one–check out the dog section) and ethical food raising a fourth. The press release heavily promoted their naturally raised meats and organic beans, which should make your  chunky hunk of Mexican taste even better.  So, go forth and gorge, summer Columbians. And go Lions.

 

The love affair comes to an end…

This is actually a big deal

Money!

In Soviet Russia, Russia’s Future dissects YOU!

“Hoyt believes that he got into Columbia because of baseball and he’s probably right.”

A student on Spiegelman’s Comics Marching into the Canon seminar, and this web-only interview

Café East, it’s “East” of…the Hudson River 

(Locke + Hume + Rousseau + Burke) x Matthew Fox) = we’ve been waiting

Bill Pennington, author of an article in today’s Times, meditates on what many-an-Ivy Leaguer has meditated: just what is the purpose of pursuing a successful football program at a school known for its academic caliber?  Are the two ends of academic excellence and athletic triumph mutually exclusive?

(Perhaps: he notes that Duke, Northwestern, and Stanford, top schools with strong football programs, all have pretty shitty records)

The Columbia squad might be proud.

Every semester, President Bollinger brings about 40 students off the street into his swanky abode at 60 Morningside Drive to find out what’s going on in the collective student consciousness. Registration is competitive, and as Bwog mounted the cushy staircase to PrezBo’s elegantly appointed receiving room, we realized why: the snacks are phenomenal. During a 20 minute schmooze session, the undergrads fed on miniature hamburgers and peeled asparagus served up by a flock of smiling attendants. Here are some highlights from the discussion:

- The Opener: PrezBo began with his standard global university patter, covering the by now familiar tropes of how we need more international students, how much we NEED more space, and how committed we are to educational opportunity.



- On African Studies: Bollinger pinned the blame for the department’s termination on erstwhile SIPA Dean Lisa Anderson, but said that we should be expecting a “major announcement” regarding the leader of a new department.



- On Athletics: “I really care a lot about athletics. One of the things I’m been troubled by is the sense that Columbia athletics has not been sufficiently respected or that it’s losing.” Just focus on water polo!



- On the distinctiveness of a Columbia alum: “You’re more in debt than the others.” Uneasy laughter. “That was a joke.”

- On the works of Shakespeare: “You actively read them every day. You build a life with them…he had the ability to create characters who are truly, truly real. To do that is an act of genius.”



- On the potential departure of Dean Galil: “Besides being extraordinary, he’s lovable. I would wish him the best, and would work with him as the president of an institution. I think it would be good for the world.”

- On the disinvitation of President Ahmadinejad: Bollinger abandoned the pretense that the Iranian leader was asked not to speak because of “security concerns.”  New version of events: he was informed on a Wednesday morning that Dean Anderson had invited Ahmadinejad while working in a small group setting at the UN to speak Friday morning. The President’s office couldn’t get a line of communication that would have assured him that Ahmadinejad would consent to a question and answer period, which Bollinger said was essential for this event to have academic merit. Especially considering Ahmadinejad had, one night earlier, implied that the Holocaust did not occur. “Are you unfathomably ignorant, or are you brazenly insulting?” PrezBo asked rhetorically.

Bwog football correspondent CML recounts the Lions’ loss to Dartmouth.

The defining question for this Saturday’s contest between Columbia and Dartmouth wasn’t who was in the gutter — both teams were tied for last place in the Ivy League at 0-2 — but who was looking at the stars.  When the pigskin first left the foot of the Big Green’s kicker and arced through the brisk October air, it became obvious that it was the Lions.  The skyward-gazing kickoff returner was wrenched back to painful reality as the ball glanced off his unsuspecting body, and though Columbia retained possession, the infamous offense fumbled on the first play of the drive, this time relinquishing control deep in its own territory (and establishing a record for the ratio of fumbles to plays).  Dartmouth, whose focus was evidently more terrestrial, nimbly picked the Lions’ defense apart with adroitness, perhaps uncharacteristic of perpetual inebriates to notch a touchdown and field goal in quick succession.  The offense puttered around the line of scrimmage myopically, the Big Green scored another touchdown to extend its lead to 17, and the Lions found themselves thrown from the gutter into a spiraling abyss of futility.

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If you go to the athletics website and click on Sports Marketing ->Official Sponsors, you get, appropriately enough, a blank page.