NY Times: "Marine Helps Toughen Cornell Football"

Story in Saturday's New York Times 10/3/09 about a Cornell faculty advisor to football and now the team's new (?) toughness (?) advisor, Lt. Col. Jerry Rizzo, a 44-year-old F-18 fighter pilot, Iraq ground combat veteran and 19-year member of the Marine Corps from Natick, Mass.

Brian Hayman, NYT
Rizzo was a defensive back at Williams College, a receivers coach at California and the head coach of Navy’s lightweight team. He came to Cornell in 2008 as the executive officer of its Navy R.O.T.C. program and as a Marine officer instructor.After last season, he called Knowles, offering to be a team faculty adviser as well. That offer was accepted. But Knowles also asked Rizzo to evaluate the program, because a 3-0 beginning had turned into a 1-6 ending. The series of early-morning workouts was among Rizzo’s recommendations. There were 10 in the spring and 10 in the preseason. By the time they were done, about 30 players had dropped out, leaving 96 to go forward. “We needed to get tougher as a team,” Rizzo said. “We needed to do some things to make sure everyone who wore a Cornell uniform was fully bought into the program and had made the sacrifice. We just made it harder to be a Cornell football player."

The story suggests it was toughness that helped Cornell stave off the Yale two-point conversion attempt with :00 left last Saturday for a 14-12 win although the toughness that Cornell demonstrated for the first 58 minutes on defense, as well as on the 2-point attempt, appeared to be less in evidence as Yale marched 50 yards for a TD to make it close at the end.

Players now get up at 5:30 to do drills. Which is probably better for a team than still being up at 5:30.

This reminds me so much of Schafer's "adjustments" to start the 1996 season. No leadership questions on that team. I hope Cornell football begins to follow a similar trajectory.

Scersk '97
This reminds me so much of Schafer's "adjustments" to start the 1996 season. No leadership questions on that team. I hope Cornell football begins to follow a similar trajectory.

1996 was Schafer's first season. This is Knowles's sixth. The "trajectory" has been downward. Ivy wins by year: 4-4-3-2-2. This team needs an offense, not a Marine.

Every year, Coach Knowles expresses disappointment in the previous season and comes out with a new motivational scheme, thinking that they could win the Ivy League if only they make internal changes. The bottom line is that they are not winning the recruiting game against the perennial powers like Harvard, Yale, and Penn. But the bigger question is why should Coach Knowles care so much about winning? Sure, the team would like to be proud of the way they perform on the field, but the whole point of Ivy League athletics is to not let this extracurricular activity become a distraction from or priority over education. In the case of the non-scholarship football leagues, almost none of the players, as we know, become pros. Football, then, is a recreational activity that should only serve to enhance the overall educational experience of the participants. It's important not to lose sight of that. So when a coach looks desperate to produce a winning team in order to justify his own employment, he doesn't have his priorities straight.

For how long now, exactly, have you been a freshman?

Of course the players at all eight Ivy football schools are student athletes. But if the Ivy-bound football players wound up at the eight schools randomly, the teams played and won and won titles randomly, we'd have seven Ivy titles since the league started play back in Ike's day. Instead we've got zero outright and two ties. Bringing in a Marine toughness facilitator can't hurt (other than the players' sleep) and it seemed to work until we ran into a team without a toughness instructor but with better players.

Tailgating remains fun and so does chatting with friends in the stands, win or lose. What hurts is getting ribbed by the ex-Princeton player down the street. Just not this week on account they got drubbed by Lafayette [edit: by Columbia 38-0 (not sure where Lafayette came in)] while we were done in by Colgate.

The value of the Marine assistant sounds like just about the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever read. Am I supposed to believe that if Yale converted the two-point conversion I would be proven correct?

billhoward
Bringing in a Marine toughness facilitator can't hurt (other than the players' sleep)

And I have seen several studies that show a strong correlation between getting a good night's sleep and GPA.

So does something that hurts sleep really do no harm to a student-athlete?

billhoward
What hurts is getting ribbed by the ex-Princeton player down the street. Just not this week on account they got shut out 38-0 by Columbia while we were done in by Colgate.

FYP.

ugarte
The value of the Marine assistant sounds like just about the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever read. Am I supposed to believe that if Yale converted the two-point conversion I would be proven correct?

Maybe Colgate had a Marines plus Green Berets. Then there's that question of who the Supreme Drill Instructor favors when BC plays Notre Dame. Which reminds me of Mark Twain's War Prayer.