Other things Harvard is best at
This week we learned that “Harvard is the best at many things.” Crimson writer Alexander Koenig says so, in a pointed article titled “Columbia: The Ivy League’s Worst Athletics Program.” Spoiler alert: Alexander Koenig does not think our athletics program is very good!
Koenig (official nickname: “If I wanted to be called Alex, I would have gone to a state school”) points out that we’ve won fewer championships than Harvard, that our football team is bad, and that our basketball team has lost to Harvard’s basketball team on at least one occasion. And Harvard’s sports program, Koenig says, is second only to Princeton in the Ivy League.
All of these things, perhaps, are facts! But what Koenig seems to have forgotten is that, um, none of this matters. Bragging about being the second-best sports program in the Ivy League is like boasting that you had the second-hottest prom date at your homeschool. It may be true, but it’s nothing to be proud of.
It’s not that we don’t love our teams — we do. They unite our school and provide a sense of community that is too often missing, even when they lose. And of course we’d all like to do better. But you’d think an article that opens “Harvard is the best at many things” could find some more important measures than conference titles. Luckily, even if Koenig can’t, we can. Here are some of the other things that Harvard is best at.
1. Most pretentious writing. Exhibit A: Alexander Koenig (official slogan: “All of my favorite sportswriters were born in the nineteenth century”). If you haven’t read his article, you should check it out. You’ll see phrases like “No matter” and “Let’s have a chuckle” and “Jolly good, old boy!” Ok that last one is not actually in there — but seriously, this is pretty pretentious stuff, even by Harvard standards.
2. Most racist law school students. “Today are are lots and lots of extra blacks on campus.”
3. Largest number of university presidents who have been forced to resign over sexist remarks. In 2006, Harvard president Lawrence Summers resigned his position after suggesting that there aren’t many women in the science and math fields because…uh, because women aren’t good at science and math. Whoops!
4. Longest amount of time a university community was willing to tolerate their sexist president. This category is like a breath-holding contest, except instead of timing how long people can go without breathing, we see who can ignore sexism the longest! Harvard wins! Summers made his controversial remarks in 2005, and stayed on as president for another year (and then got a paid, year-long sabbatical after that).
5. Fakest evaluations of student performance. Is “fakest” a word? If I went to Harvard, no one would ask me that question! They’d just give me an A minus and get on with their lives.
6. Least supportive and/or dumbest fans. Yeah, our band openly mocked our football team — but at least we’ve never had hundreds of fans hold up placards reading “WE SUCK.”
7. Lamest nightlife. Your bars close at midnight, Harvard. At least Cornell doesn’t pretend to be located in a real city.
See, Alexander Koenig (official drinking game rule: “Nothing that’s not poured from a decanter”) is right! Harvard is good at lots of things, guys!
harvard is the kim kardashian of the ivy league
http://i.imgur.com/O2pBe.gif
we have a witty one over here
chill
Imposter!
Is anyone else sick of Ivy League students bashing other Ivy Leagues? The entire Ivy League is overflowing with kids who are so full of themselves it makes me nauseous. I can’t wait to get out of here.
Thank you for putting this in perspective, and verbalizing my gut reaction to this article. What a joke.
This response is simply beautiful and well deserved
Even their alumni are disappointed in them!
Imposter
Do you like puppies? Probably
Do you hate racists? Probably
Do you know who loves racists and who hates puppies? Spec: they throw huge communist orgies with Hitler and Stalin where they kill puppies
Now I dont know about you, but that sure doesnt sound like the way we do business here in the good ole US of A. So if youre a true patriot, come on down to http://specsucks.wordpress.com . We are 100% good ole fashioned Americans who dont kill puppies (atleast not intentionally) and dont have orgies (though if you ever been to a frat party, you sort of have unintentionally been a part of one, you should write about that too grandma… I digress)
http://i42.tinypic.com/ajp8d4.gif
Oooo Oooo lookey i can use GIFS too!
http://chamberofwizdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/devil-clap.gif
Harvard is right, columbia blows. To be honest, I would take a 4.0 gpa from havard the easy way than slave away for my 3.6. We aren’t sexist? Columbia students mock barnard all the time. Their bars might close at 12 but that means they aren’t crammed into the Heights at 2am, talking to a bunch of arrogant guys and girls who think they should be models. Give me a break, Columbia. Not saying Harvard is better, but this place doesn’t do much to redeem itself.
don’t forget that columbia students who mock barnard are GIRLS too. often the jokes aren’t about women but about their intelligence.
That doesn’t make the jokes any better?
Could we just be honest here and remember that sexism comes from both genders, although including, perhaps most unfortunately, from other WOMEN on the Columbia campus. The sexism is easily visible all over the campus, from GS to BS to CC to SEAS. It’s not hard to find the omnipresent pulse of misogynistic sentiments here on Columbia’s campus.
Furthermore, when you say that the jokes aren’t about women in general, but about their intelligence, I truly beg to differ. True, aside from the many comments about how Barnard women are inherently, genetically, internally, externally, in-every-way [insert some other very definitive absolutist adjective here] the intelligent inferiors of any of the CC/SEAS/GS students, it is pretty obvious that most of the hatred actually comes from a deep seeded hatred of women.
Yes, meaning that most comments about Barnard women, and by extension, women in general, is that we are still seen as the “cum dumpsters” of this campus and this world. This does not point to intelligence in anyway. In fact, most sexism on this campus is much, much, more than just sexism – it’s critically tied to the female body, not just to the female mind. It’s misogyny.
Pretty sure that comment belongs here:
http://bwog.com/2012/03/03/breaking-obama-to-speak-at-barnards-commencement/
Women can be sexist, too. Duh.
this is the dumbist debate… it’s about acceptance rates, NOT sexism. don’t make it about something bigger to glorify your cause. doesn’t a women’s college integrated into a co-ed one not defy the whole idea of a women’s college anyway? there is and always will be tension because columbia students felt that they really earned something in getting in, only for it to be debased by other people who claim to have earned the same thing when being in the top 27% of a 4000 person applicant pool just should not be on par with being in the top 6% or an over 100,000 applicant pool (i’m referring to the ny times fact sheet here). ITS NOT SEXISM. shut up about it already.
Anonymous May 6 at 11:33 AM,
Columbia students need to lose their obsession with college acceptance rates. You guys fixate on them because, along this one dimension, you are competitive with HYP.
But HYP have low admission rates because students want to attend HYP. Columbia’s acceptance rates have plummeted for a different reason — because New York City is more popular than ever before. Columbia just happens to be in New York. Notice that NYU has experienced an even steeper climb in the number of applications and a sharper fall in admissions rate.
The real test of institutional popularity is whether anybody ever turns down an acceptance at HYP to attend Columbia. I know one person who did. Maybe you know one person as well. But those people are few and far between.
For Columbia students to wish that Barnard would go away because the latter has a high acceptance rate speaks to Columbia’s nagging suspicion that your fixation on admissions ratios is overdone and misplaced. And you know what? It is.
you gonna tell people the truth like that! Great job though! XD !!!
Why didn’t you go to Harvard?
i find writing that CAPITALIZES every point it hopes to EMPHASIZE to be incredibly GRATING, and i immediately dismiss any points its author hopes to make. additionally, i consider the author him/herself to be significantly less intelligent because [s]he uses this rhetorical device. call me a snob, asshole, what you will, but PLEASE stop doing this. there are other ways to highlight your point, that don’t require making your {post, email, other form of writing} look like the last 37 chain letters I got from middle-aged people with no idea of how writing on the internet is supposed to work.
Thank you, that is all.
(Oh yes, it is finals time)
Well, you know, PrezBo just passed $30 million in recruiting specifically minority and female faculty, which is pretty racist/sexist too…
Is this an accusation of reverse racism/reverse sexism?
http://uploadir.com/u/57429p
http://yoisthisracist.com/post/19298062876/yo-what-is-reverse-racism
Care to debate that?
,,.
But really, you should take it up with him. I would pay to see him dialectically eviscerate you.
sarcasm. I think?
Passing $30 million in diversity recruiting is far from racist or sexist. You are such an idiot for even suggesting that.
he was being sarcastic (thus all the upvotes).
Actually, it’s totally racist. Just because it’s racist in the other direction than usual doesn’t make it any less so.
Stop trying to make “reverse racism” happen. It’s not going to happen!
…come on. Jabs about nightlife? It’s like we’re stooping to Harvard’s level by bashing them like this. I consider the Spec to be a publication with the utmost integrity, so I’m quite surprised to see this posted by its affiliated Spectrum blog. I love this, but maybe it would be better suited for Bwog or something. Not a very Spec-like piece.
This was clearly a response that both points out the stupidity of the Harvard blog post as well as making amusing jokes about one of our Ivy counterparts. It certainly doesn’t compromise Spectator’s integrity—you’re taking this far too seriously! It was not meant to make damning attacks on Harvard (as the original did against Columbia), but to make light of the pretension that “Harvard is the best at so many things.” Click the links, laugh, and RELAX.
I did click the links and laugh, and I am relaxed (despite the finals week stress). It’s funny. I agree with you on that. So I don’t think this is a matter of me “getting over” myself. All I’m trying to say is that Spec didn’t really need to post something like this. The original article speaks for itself in terms of its stupidity – we don’t need to point it out. We Columbians could just take the high road and not even address it, because the fact of the matter is that it was a worthless article. Even the comments (from Harvard people) on the original article acknowledge its stupidity. So why bring even more attention to some Harvard prick who wants to talk smack? He looks like enough of an idiot just for writing that. Spec has bigger, better, more important topics to write about… things that actually matter! Let’s focus on those things, instead.
Personally, I think it’s nice to see us defending Columbia and Columbia’s student-athlete community. But instead of tit-for-tat put-downs of Harvard, I’d rather see people demonstrating pride and support by attending events. That’ll show Alex (excuse me, Alexander) Koenig that our “five-mile bus ride through New York traffic” can’t stop us from filling up our stands. ROAR, Lions!
Bars at Harvard close at 1AM on weekdays and 2AM on weekends. What a shitty article.
Straight up.
…how those are both before 4 AM?
In regards to point 3, if you’d bothered to do real research and read the speech Larry Summers gave, his remark was not actually sexist and was a remark supported by numerous scientific studies. It was written off as a sexist remark because people who didn’t bother listening to the speech said he said women aren’t as good at math and science. What Larry Summers actually said was that regardless of a difference in mean ability, which has not been proven, there is a much higher variance in the abilities of men than in women for math in science. That means there are more men who are at the very top of those fields, but also many more men who are terrible at math and science. Many women in the field of science supported Larry Summers in what he said, and it’s because those who know and do the research and those who don’t look for an excuse to cry “sexism” at every remark know what he really said, and that it is backed up by many scientific studies, many of those studies done and published by women.
Do your research.
As snobbishly-written as that blog post was (and keep in mind it was a random filler on a blog and not an article, there is a difference), I don’t really get the venom coming from here.
People are acting like it’s an attack on our student-athletes. As great as many teams have been, the fact is CU has won one title in two years.
And the notion that winning a championship in the two most high-profile sports doesn’t matter or is “nothing to be proud of” is stupid.
We shouldn’t be stooping down to the level of that blog post.
“Snobbish” is your reference to a blog post as “random filler.” No one said winning a championship didn’t matter or is “nothing to be proud of.” Learn how to use quotation marks.
I don’t get why random filler can’t be snobbish.
This post is implying that having the second most championships in the league and having superior football and basketball teams to us doesn’t matter. If you are an Ivy sports fan, then it does.
Spec’s worst sports columnist steps up to defend the Crimson’s worst sports columnist.
There’s no need for personal attacks. Good lord. It’s a post containing nothing but jokes. If you don’t like the jokes, read something else. If someone is taking the jokes too seriously, ignore him. Be nice to each other! And while RY perhaps needs to relax, his columns are pretty good and far better than anything in the Crimson.
Is my hero
But, comments below his rant by unlimited tryer and internetter point out that the Lions beat the Cantabs in various sports, includung men’s tennis, baseball, indoor Heps and wrestling.
I’m well aware. Doesn’t change my opinion on either of these blog posts.
A really great way to get people to stop making fun of our athletics would be to put a quality team on the field in a revenue sport. The end.
Columbia takes smart kids, Harvard and Princeton take dumb jocks and legacies. We excel at intelligence, not collegiate athletes that go nowhere. Other than Lin, I can’t name a recent Harvard or Princeton grad accomplished in any sport. Columbia is also the second smallest undergrad after Dartmouth.
Columbia is not the second smallest undergraduate Ivy.
Columbia College: 4,463
SEAS: 1,454
Total CC + SEAS: 5,917
These two colleges alone would make Columbia merely the fourth smallest Ivy, after Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale. But our sports teams actually include athletes from Barnard as well. Adding Barnard to our enrollment makes us bigger than Harvard and the third largest Ivy after only Cornell and Penn. Our varsity teams include a few General Studies students also, so we’re actually larger still.
=Dand i started conatnercting on the ones standing next to him trying to guess who’s your dad, not the ones walking behind VA:F [1.9.17_1161]please wait…VA:F [1.9.17_1161](from 0 votes)
I guess Harvard is pissed at the Bloomberg News article last week that said that Columbia is now on par with Harvard.
Oh come now, now we’re resorting to these sorts of shenanigans too? I think the act of publishing the Harvard article spoke for itself.
Why not talk about how Harvard is just, generally, a sketchy place? I mean, I know a guy from high school who is a senior there now—dumb as a board, was wait listed with even a triple legacy and finally got in last minute—and he is headed off to an incredible investment banking career with no life experience whatsoever besides an average GPA, zero math skills / classes, and a waitering job. What a strange place Harvard is.
I agree. I also know someone from high school who was dumb as a rock and got into Harvard simply because he was good at rowing.
I knew this one girl who was a complete slut and got in to Harvard.
Don’t know if that means anything…just thought I should mention how much I hate that whore.
shut up
as someone who knows both Columbia and Havard students, I can assure you that you’re both annoyingly elitist. Just the fact that both of these articles are written is enough evidence to back up my claim.
you don’t even go to either school…you probably shouldn’t be talking.
“SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE!”
No, I just have a lot of feelings…
let’s start a rivalry with the H
But that would distract us from our rivalry w/ Princeton :(
Fuck Princeton
this will make you forget any animosity you may have toward the harvard athletics program:
http://www.thecrimson.com/blog/the-back-page/article/2012/5/7/harvard-baseball-dance-call-me-maybe/
Oh my goodness thank you!
I’m in love.
This somehow reminded me I like fellow sportsmen (and sportswomen), regardless of their affiliation.
Why is everyone taking this so seriously…? It’s school rivalry, it happens.
this article was pretty fucking weak…..and Harvard can’t have a rivalry with Columbia, our rival is Yale. I don’t think there is much of a debate to be had as columbia is a school of mediocre athletes and pissed of asians who didn’t get into harvard. Harvard does not take “dumb kids.” Sure we take rich kids with connections, but the kids who got in without connections and without athletics are unquestionably among the brightest in the world. Lets just say Evan O’Dorney wasn’t looking to become a Columbia Lion…..
“columbia is a school of mediocre athletes and pissed of asians who didn’t get into harvard.”
Way to prove Spec’s point about racism. Apparently it exists at all levels—graduate AND undergraduate!
This was a reply from someone from Harvard. Don’t blame Spec.
some of us here at Columbia turned DOWN harvard to avoid douches like you.
Hi, i was the poster under the pseudonym “seth.” I just want to acknowledge that my comment was rash, and stupid. Also ironic as I am asian. Anyways, both are great schools and I have many friends at columbia, so sorry for the outburst. I just think targeting this poor koenig kid is immature — though he may have disrespected columbia’s athletic department at large, he doesn’t deserve to be crucified for it.
“Seth”, that is very cool of you to take responsibility for your rash comment. It is now time to let this whole thing drop. It can be settled on the playing fields next Fall.
The Columbia-Harvard rivalry has been the most appropriate rivalry involving Columbia this year.Columbia should focus its efforts on competing with other ivy league schools rather than a broke women’s college across the street.
P.S. Columbia’s campus is brimming with elitists, racists and sexists. Focus on your own community before you call out another community for being sexist, elitist, or racist.