Not a hallmark of success

Afew weeks ago, Columbia President Lee Bollinger, along with athletic director M. Dianne Murphy, held a symposium to address the sorry state of the school's athletic department. The conclusion was simple -- be more like Penn.

Indeed, our University's sports teams look like the perfect model of success in Ivy League athletics.

After all, it seems like our basketball team is always going to the NCAA Tournament or our football team is winning an Ancient Eight title. The attendance at most sporting events across the Ivy League pales in comparison to the regular crowds at the Palestra and Franklin Field. We have alumni in the National Football League and Major League Baseball.

But the little secret about Penn athletics as a whole is that we're far from the best in the Ivy League. Contrary to the belief of those at Columbia and elsewhere, we're not the model of perfection. We're just decent.

If you were really searching for the best athletic programs, look no further than Princeton and Harvard. Together, they have won over half of the Ivy League championships since 2000.

Princeton alone has claimed just under a third of all Ancient Eight titles so far this decade. Penn, meanwhile, has 22 championships. That's good enough for fourth in the league, behind Princeton (50), Harvard (35) and Cornell (27).

Penn's teams are consistently so-so across the board. Last year, our squads averaged a fourth-place finish in an eight-team league -- the very definition of mediocre. Princeton and Harvard, on the other hand, averaged closer to a third-place finish.

So why does Penn have the reputation of being a sports powerhouse? It's because the school is consistently good at the two most prominent college sports -- football and basketball (men's and women's).

Almost half of our school's Ivy League titles since 2000 have come from those two sports, bringing a lot of attention to Penn's athletic department as a whole.

Most students don't care about how well the school does in other sports, as long as we win consistently in football and basketball.

It's easy for Penn to perform well at these two money sports. The school has a long tradition of success and also boasts some of the world's most historic venues. The institution has been able to build a national reputation on the strength of these programs.

But schools like Columbia would be foolish to attempt to copy this model. Trying to build a program to compete with Penn in football and basketball is like trying to start a dot-com to compete with Google and Microsoft.

Rather, Columbia should look to Harvard and Princeton. The Crimson (in football) and the Tigers (in basketball) have each enjoyed recent success in major sports. But the real strength of their athletic departments rests on a base of minor-sport powerhouses.

In 11 of the past 12 seasons, Princeton has won at least nine Ivy League titles. The most Penn has ever won in a single season is eight -- in 1983.

It's much more reasonable to think that Columbia could build some major programs in the swimmings and volleyballs of the world. They have already found some success in cross country and fencing.

Other schools have found that this formula works. Trinity College used its squash program as a catalyst to bring about bigger athletic changes. Since the school gained notoriety by winning seven straight national squash titles, it has been able to expand its football and basketball programs.

By having success in smaller sports, the level of professionalism and alumni interest in athletics rises. This ultimately results in better administrators, better facilities and eventually better players for the "money sports."

Of course, Princeton and Harvard have some natural advantages over the rest of the Ivy League schools -- primarily financial aid. They offer debt-free packages, meaning that athletes don't leave school having to pay back thousands of dollars in loans.

Unfortunately, schools with smaller endowments like Penn and Columbia don't have the luxury of offering such lucrative incentives.

But Columbia has other advantages over its competition, particularly its location in New York. Like at Penn, it's easy to sell the school if you sell the city.

But that seems like the one major thing Columbia can learn from our university. Any attempt to build an athletic department from the top down seems illogical.

Columbia for years has been the laughing stock of the league. If Bollinger wants to bring his school to the forefront, he should overlook Penn and instead open his eyes to where the real success lies.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.