Letter to Harvard Coach

[A-19]

The following is an e-mail i wrote to Harvard head coach Mark Mazzoleni, after Friday's game. I also c.c.-ed it to the Daily Sun, not like they'd print it. I thought everyone might be amused to read it.

Friday February 1, 2002, 10:21PM

Coach Mark Mazzoleni,

I would first like to commend you for cementing Cornell University's mens hockey program as the predominant power in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference, and in the nation. Such a feat does not occur without convincing victories over the nation's most respected hockey programs-- a category to which Harvard University clearly belongs. One would expect that, when facing such an opponent, while a healthy rivalry does indeed exist between our two schools, the level of professionalism would not sink below a certain threshold. While ultimately, one may not hold the players, or the fans, to the highest standards, one would hope that the adults involved in the programs would be able to do so. Unfortunately, your vivid display of bold emotional release at Friday's hockey game runs to the contrary of such an optimistic statement. Surely, Cornell's sad display of heaving fish on the ice, while facing your team, can be considered neither hospitable, professional, nor respectful. In addition, while our fans may jeer your players, your staff, and your program, it is generally expected that the coaches of opponents can refrain from acting in a manner characteristic of 19 year olds. Sadly, this trend whereas adults are inable to deal maturely with criticism by opponents has manifested itself not just in cases of players' parents (i.e. "Hockey Dad"), but at the highest levels of intercollegiate academic sports. In case you are not aware, last week, the Columbia men's basketball coach, in response to jeers by Cornell pep band members, called one such member, pardon the profanity, "a fucking faggot." It is hard to believe that the members of the pep band, and the Cornell fans in general, are so adept at angering the opposing team that we inspire hate in every opponent we face, though we may like to think so. And, while we may expect such responses from Columbia, surely I would not expect such base responses from the head coach of your strongest sports program, at the eldest and most prestigious college of the country. Perhaps you have forgotten that your behavior on Friday is a reflection upon your university, and yourself. And surely, your display, which included beating the goalie stick against the boards, with the ever-eloquent, "@!#$!" reflects both your obvious frustration with your team's performance, your limited vocabulary, and your inability to deal maturely with inconvenient situations. Moreover, the fact that your explatives succeeded a Cornell fan cheer of "Overrated" shows both your short fuse, and lends credence to the cheer itself. That is, the belief that the nation's finest university is indeed overrated is easily confirmed when a senior member of its staff curses back at a group of teens he is unable to deal with. If you have indeed read this far in this letter, I hope that I have succeeded in conveying many fans' opinions of your unprofessional coaching techniques. And to say that Cornell students cursed at you, derrided your team and players, and indeed your own coaching decisions would merely be to admit that you cannot deal with the insults of 18-21 year olds. Oftentimes, Harvard students make the comment that Cornell is the "disgraceful Ivy," or comments of such sort. However, the fact that our coach does not have to bang a stick and curse in front of fans, and children, speaks volumes. Thank you very much for your time, and for the victory. We'll be sure to see you at Lake Placid, that is, if your team makes it.  And I will indeed be looking for more brilliant remarks from your side of the bench in the near future.

[Jordan \'04]

I guess this would make nice bulletin board material for them should we see them down the road....

Things happen...coaches flip out ever now and then.  It's not as if Schafer can never be seen/caught using profanity "in front of fans and children".

Their team and coaching staff was overwhelmed physically and mentally in an unbelievably emotional atmosphere.  Something had to give, and if that meant their coach cursing and beating the stick against the boards, I'd rather see that then have one of their players release emotion by hurting our guys.

They were thrashed by our team and couldn't quite handle it.  I don't see too many moral issues here.  If anything, those outbursts made the night all the more enjoyable.

Also, the Columbia coach never used profanity as you claim in your quote.

[RichS]

Hmmm....are you proud of yourself for that holier than thou dissertation?   A

I suspect that Mr. Mazzoloeni already regrets his behavior, and your scolding him for it over and over accomplishes little if anything.   Maybe he'll actually be "talked to" by the league!

Is it your intention to humiliate him by hoping the newspaper would print it?  To what end?

[Rico]

I dunno, I think apart from his losing it, our fans throwing bottles was extremely crass. ESPECIALLY since we did it at Brown too.. this is not a tradition I am into.

[Robb]

Wow.  When I saw the title to the thread, I thought, "Good - someone is going to write a letter to Harvard apologizing for the Cornell fans' behavior during and after the game."  Boy, was I in for a shock.  Your letter disgusts me.  Cornell fans ought to be ashamed of each and every fish, bottle, and cup thrown after the national anthems.  Even Schafer was able to recognize the vileness of the Cornell fans' actions.  I seems to remember his screaming at the crowd, too - why don't you publicly berate him for not being able to handle the actions of the juvenile delinquents in the crowd?  Such actions SHOULD NOT be tolerated.  We will be fortunate indeed if Mazzolini can calm down enough to appreciate the *good* emotion and energy that is part of the Cornell/Harvard rivalry and chooses not to complain to the ECAC and the NCAA about our fans' behavior.  

Having said that, I love it when the energy of the Lynah Faithful boosts our team on to victory.  It's also great when our cheering flusters, infuriates, or even merely distracts the opponents.  Those are the two goals of cheering.  Perhaps Mazzolini was upset over the poor play of his team.  Perhaps he was mad because he thought the ref had made a bad call.  Maybe he was frustrated that he hadn't been able to hear himself think for the last two hours.  Or just maybe he was mad that his players had to put up with the bush league Cornell fans who thought it was acceptable to throw objects on the ice.  We'll never know his motivations, so as long as there is the possibility that his anger was just, I'm not going to judge his actions.  Besides, even if Cornell fans had behaved appropriately throughout the contest and he had still "lost it," wouldn't it be satisfaction enough to know that the Faithful had done their jobs well?   Our purpose in cheering is to upset the other team; why blame them when we succeed?  Your smug letter is so much like a 4-year-old laughing at his own joke -  grow up.

Robb '94

[rsafploc 03]

Let's not be too hard on the guy... I can understand that since all the lynah faithful as well as the facetimers got so charged up managing a big win over harvard and with such class... But well, I'm sure mike knows better now than to do it again....

What sickens me are the facetimers who threw those damn fish in before the second period... You will never be able to educate facetimers AT ALL...

Like you said Robb... what's impt is that our cheering (and sore throats) work against our opponents at home or away... Cheering's true objective's not to prove a point (ie.. that harvard hockey really sux) or anything... It's about us doing our part as our team fights the real battle out on the ice...

LGR!!!

[Will \'01]

i thought (hoped) the letter would be an apologetic one as well...honestly, it accomplishes nothing but beating somebody when he is on his knees. In sports, it is normal to lose your temper once in a while (and I find your comparison to the Junta incident very misguided). Although a certain expectation of restraint and discipline is acceptable (especially from a coach), we are all humans, and we all lose our tempers occasionally thus doing things we soon come to regret.  By writing such idiotic letter, you have done Cornell University and its members a disservice by furnishing ammunition to the various accusations that we "have no class." Please, the best reply to any of Harvard's antics is the fact that we trounced them fair and square where it counted, the ice. An arrogant letter of that kind does nothing but portray us as classless winners.  LGR!!!!

[ugarte]

Final note to Mike: If you are going to write a sanctimonious letter to a man who has accomplished so much, and impugn his intelligence to boot, I have a bit of advice.

1. Choose passive voice selectively.  It is a worthwhile device, and derided unfairly, but please please please grab a copy of Strunk & White and at least learn the form before you depart from it.

2. Hackneyed pseudo-literary flourishes like

runs to the contrary

are just sad.

3. Spell-check, my friend, spell-check.

Your letter, if it is printed, will embarrass Cornell far more than Coach Mazzoleni's actions embarrassed Harvard.

[Ian]

Separating thoughts into paragraphs might help, too.

[redice]

Mike,


     Maybe it's time to show some real class and apologize to him.  And don't forget to send copies to all parties who received the original note.  Your original note was so arrogant that I doubt he'll read anything further with your name in the "from" field.  But, it's worth a try.   Please.

[Ben Doyle 03]

Defiantly not cool.

[CowbellGuy]

Maybe he's the guy who walked up to the ticket takers holding a fish with two more hanging out of his pockets...  :-|

Schafer was extremely irate after the game at the antics of the fans, and you certainly can't blame him. Seems like the consistent downward trend in volume and creativity of the Faithful has crossed into the realm of classlessness. Very unfortunate.

[marty\'74]

Dear Mike,

How about a sincere apology for all the @!#$ that the "fans" threw on the ice?  The faithful shouldn't become the feckless.  A boatload of fish before the first period is more than enough to make the point that 10 years after Harvard threw a chicken on the ice (back when many of the faithful were watching Mr. Rogers?) we still can't get over that insult.

I think its time for this tradition to die even though I do think it was both fun and funny up until this year.

And if you really want to do something creative with fish, donate to the local food pantry.

[melissa]

I too was hoping for an apologetic letter but can't really condemn Mike. A smart idea for everyone in the future might be to vent frustrations and run ideas by other members of the Lynah Faithful before acting. This has prevented me from doing some silly things in the past ... just ask Judy. Aside from the throwing of crap on the ice what really embarassed me as a Cornell Fan was the hitting Nowak in the face with a fish. Totally not classy!!!!

Granted, I am still relatively new to the faithful (four years),  but I can already see a demise in the class of the Lynah fans. Creativity has been replaced with "SUCKS" and anything that rhymes with that word. This has more or less become our only response to an opponent and it is in itself embarassing.

[A-19]

Dear everyone,

What I wrote in that letter was intended solely as a clever joke. Anyone who views it as some sort of condemnation of immoral behavior is reading way too far into it, and obviously didn't catch much of the satire. The same goes to those criticiquing my grammar and "pseudo-intellectual floruishes."

Anyway, I am not going to apologize for Cornell's fish tradition. No, I did not bring fish to the game, and yes, I am a season ticket holder in A, which personally I hold to be the best section in Lynah due to the proximity to the goalie. While I did not bring any fish (though I did bring Colgate boxes to the Colgate game, and an Ithaca police officer actually threatened to throw me out if I threw the empty box...ridiculous), I am not about to criticize those who throw them prior to period one. As to those who threw the fish later in the game, I wouldn't use the word "immoral" or "dishonorable" so much as "stupid," due to the possibly costly penalties resulting. If the point of the fish is to taunt the opposing team and establish a home ice advantage, surely encurring penalties for one's own team cannot be seen as such.

Lastly, I would like to leave one comment regarding the posts some of you have left about the cleverness of Lynah cheers, etc. I don't know how many of you actually go to these hockey games, or attend them all season, though you surely call yourselves the "Lynah faithful." In my experience, the real Lynah Faithful are the ones who actually sleep outside in order to get their tickets, and the ones who actually cheer at the games. If many of you were as concerned with taunting the opposing team as you were of replying to a satirical letter I wrote, then maybe you wouldn't have to complain so much about the Cornell cheer originality. I don't see how many of you can make that criticism, because at present point, I consistently notice that only the pep band, myself, and a handful of students in A and B actually lead Cornell cheers. And no, I am not that guy screaming random obscenities at the ice. So the next time that any of you Lynah "faithful" want to degrade the originality of the cheers, actualy decide to say something instead of blending into the background of a Let's Go Red cheer once or twice a game.