After three long years of losing, the Lions football team emerged victorious from their battle with Wagner this weekend (we’re sure you haven’t noticed). The last time they won a game was almost three years ago. Staff Writer Mia Lindheimer takes a look at what happened during that fateful game, the Lions’ last glimpse of joy.

Before last weekend, most of the CU student body had lost all faith in the lions, tired of getting their hopes up for a team who let them down time after time. But there was a time in the distant past when the Lions actually won on occasion, even against fellow D1 teams. Let’s take a journey back to 2012.

Lions tackling Cornell – literally and figuratively

It was on November 10 of that year when the Lions played Cornell at the Empire State Bowl. Just coming off a 0-69 loss to Harvard, it was the last chance for the team’s seniors to redeem themselves from such a miserable loss. With that as their apparent motivation, the Lions scored on their first possession and stayed (mostly) strong for the remainder of the game– similar to how the team played just last weekend. It seems our team may perform best with devastating loss behind them, starting off the game strong and keeping their lead until the end.

CUMB invades a sea of Big Red

As for some highlights from that last winning game: one player (Zach Olinger) grabbed an interception right off another guy’s butt, while the marching band members playfully crashed the opposing band’s performances. Members of CUMB joined the Cornell marching band on the field, their blue and white drawing all eyes to them in a sea of Big Red, and Cornell retaliated later, doing the exact same thing to our band. Good game?

Band member getting some homework done

In classic Columbia style, students (dare I say, “fans”) were not exactly enthralled with the game. Marching band members spent their time off reading (gotta keep up with the Core) and we wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the audience followed suit. However, there’s not a lot of news coverage of the game, because, as we all know, not a lot of people here give a shit about sports.

After bringing out some spirit in the CU community because of their win, the Lions closed out their season with a loss against Brown the following week, kicking off the now infamous 24-game losing streak.

Lions victorious!

We can only hope last weekend’s win wasn’t just a hiccup in the pattern. Perhaps the team really is turning around, with a new coach and now a faint hint of hope. The team has “certainly been blessed with the new coaching staff; however it is not the coaches playing the game” Brandon Krcilek, freshman and #82 on the football team told us. “The leadership from the upperclassmen is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Teammates rely on each other…which creates a mentality that ultimately takes us to unity and victory, which is beginning to show as of last week. Certainly we have a lot more work to do to turn the streak around, but with this as well as growing support from fans and students of Columbia, I have no doubt we will succeed.” We’ll see at the homecoming game against Penn next week.

Columbia Lions working hard for little support via Bwog archives, Spec archives, and GoColumbiaLions