IVY ROUNDUP: Swami of the Year; Columbia chokes; Penn Sexy SID

and Jed Walentas While all you loyal readers were sitting on your couches digesting a hearty Pilgrim's Day feast and watching pigskin classics aplenty, we here at Ivy Roundup were busy doing research. You see, our Roundup archivists did their best impression of Penn defensive coordinator Mike "Aloha" Toop -- they went to the films. We ignored the wafting odor of pumpkin pie from the kitchen and locked ourselves in our cramped office confines to comb every inch of this year's Ancient Eight smash-mouth gridiron action. Before emerging from captivity, each and every one of our Roundup soldiers of Ivy fortune had to cast their votes for this year's annual Mishkin Awards. Better than the Oscars, the Emmies, the Tonies, the Espies or even the John Madden Turkey Leg Awards, the Mishkins will truly reward the wildest and the wackiest from this 1994 Ivy League football season. It was a season that was once again dominated by the two-time undefeated league champion Quakers, who now hold the longest current winning streak in this great land of ours and the longest such streak Division I-AA has ever seen. It was a season chock-full-of Tigers and tracheas, Whipple and whipped cream, and morons and oxymorons -- take winning Lions for example. Assuming you've all appropriately digested your Thanksgiving drumsticks and resumed a normal breathing pattern after Monday night's holiday scare up in Bethlehem, let's get on with the big show. The envelopes please? · Turban Rubber of the Year In a masturbatory trend started by Cornell coach Jim Hofher (who gave his own pathetic 6-4 team a national first-place vote just days before losing to Columbia), we will begin by honoring one of our own. Scintillating Swami Andy Meran skillfully rubbed his turban and guided his carpet throughout the Northeast Corridor all autumn en route to a 38-14 record, good for the top Swami in 1994. "I'm awesome, baby," Meran was still screaming from his West Philadelphia home last evening while clearing a spot on his mantle for his first-ever Mishkin. Obviously, the clarity that was in Meran's crystal ball all year no longer remains in his head. This truly outstanding performance by our most perceptive prognosticator was just good enough to eek out everyone's favorite bandwagon jumper, Andrew Figel, in a total points tiebreaker. You see, after this heartbreaking defeat (which he blames on Andy Glockner's missed chip-shot field goal in Ithaca) and still reeling from a gutwrenching loss by the Penn hoopsters to Canisius last week, Figel announced he would be absent from the Palestra this Saturday when Ohio State comes to town. "I've had enough of this 1-1 crap," he told Roundup scribes last night. Hey, Andrew -- be careful you don't sprain your ankle jumping off the wagon. · Percussionists of the Year The Cornell band members did not jump off any bandwagons, but they did have themselves one hell of a year. After knocking out and spaying Princeton's feline mascot Blanche Rainwater earlier in the season, the Big Red freaks attacked each other with whipped cream during halftime of the season-finale against the Quakers. The festivities left the drum major beaten down and tied to the south goalpost, drenched in Redi-Whip and resembling the San Diego Chicken on a bad hair day. To make all his asininity worthwhile, however, Cornell alum and ESPN Sportscenter guru Keith Olberman mentioned them on the "Holy Oatmeal" segment of the big show last week. Such fame led us here at Roundup to honor them with a coveted Mishkin. The award will be revoked if they get whipped cream anywhere near it. · Sky Blue Panzies of the Year It took them nine and one-half games, but the Columbia football team finally showed its true colors last weekend. For the first time since Harlem's first murder, the Lions finished the season with a winning record. More importantly, they finished in true Columbia fashion. After leading Brown 24-3 at the half and extending that lead to 27-3 with an early third-quarter field goal, Columbia did something only Columbia can do. They gave up 56 unanswered points in less than 30 minutes. Yikes! That's about a safety a minute for all you budding statisticians out there. Fifty-six points to Brown? In one half? Take a moment amongst yourselves to ponder that. Truly staggering. A monumental achievement. Even Roundup probability experts had deemed that impossible. Well that just proves nobody's perfect. Except Al Bagnoli and the undisputed heavyweight Ivy League champions of the world, that is. In our humanitarian effort to dry up the Lions' Sky Blue tears, we awarded their defensive seniors with a Mishkin. After all, imagine how it feels to end your college career by giving up 56 unanswered points to Brown. Anyone but Brown. Brown sucks. Year in and year out, whatever happens, whoever's president -- Brown always sucks. So the voters took pity on these poor pathetic defenseless souls and gave them something to remember their glorious 5-4-1 season by. · Jimmy McGeehan of the Year Award Due to a lack of qualified entrants, the Jimmy McGeehan of the year award will not be presented this year. Go to Smoke's tonight for details. · Sports Information Director of the Year Award A fixture for years and years at Penn sporting events from volleyball to basketball worldwide, the venerable Bradford Hurlbut flattened his Ivy rivals like pancakes. Hurlbut rode the coattails of undefeated basketball and football teams to the media big time. Clinching the Mishkin for Hurlbut was an item dug up by Roundup fashion history experts. The stylin' athletic communications director was featured on the cover of The Washington Post's style section several years ago. Style -- we here at Roundup can dig that, Bradford. Bet you get set up with a lot of girls, huh? You can expect Big Brad to appear on a GQ coming soon to newsstands near you. · Guest Columnist of the Year In case you missed the back page today, all-world wide receiver Miles Macik scores big and gives everyone a sense of what it's like to be the best. We here at Roundup know the feeling.