IVY ROUNDUP: All Washed Up Edition

and Daniel Tenenblatt After last weekend's amazing display of fumbles and ineptitude, we at Ivy Roundup wondered if there was a reason for all the mistakes. After all, this is Ivy League football, home of both the 1920 and 1934 Rose Bowl champions. After consulting with some of the participants, we came to the conclusion that we are indeed masters of the obvious: Saturday's foul weather was the reason for the sloppy play. Pathetic Lie of the Week Yale's offense was characteristically putrid on Saturday with seven fumbles and only 110 yards of total offense. Much of this misfortune must obviously be attributed to the Penn defense, but the weather was also a factor. Besides slowing the Elis vaunted aerial assault, the cold and rain kept the normally feverish Yale fans in their rooms. We at Roundup, however, are not so easily discouraged. We braved the elements to join a small crowd that Yale said consisted of 3,600 fans. We figured we would find the real total by consulting The Daily Pennsylvanian photo department, but they -- like the Elis receiving corps -- dropped the ball. Our thorough investigation produced a Roundup "approximate attendance" figure of 382, a mere 3,218 less than the "official" total. We called Yale sports information and asked how they calculate attendance at football games. After a full three minutes of conference, the group of New Haven, Conn., scholars in the office decided that "it's probably based on ticket sales." We were looking for something a little more substantial, so the sports publicity intern decided to connect us to Wayne Dean, an assistant to the athletic director. She also gave us his phone number, "in case it gets cut off ? or something." "It's usually the number of ticketed people," Dean said. "We had 13,000 tickets sold for the game, but we did the best we could to count the actual number of people." We asked how many people he thought were still there at the end. Getting hostile, Dean said, "I don't know. I was busy tearing down tents because the wind was blowing." Tents. Right. That explains it. We at Roundup would have been the first to help with the "flying tents" if only we had seen them. We concluded that the phantom 3,218 Yale fans must have run into the stadium while no one was looking, realized it was a Yale football game and immediately left. Thank God the good folks at Yale sports information were quick enough to record their presence. Frostbite of the Week An historic event occurred last Saturday. For the first time since 1972, Columbia actually shutout an Ivy League opponent, beating Princeton, 17-0. Any loss to the Lions is reason to hang your head in shame, but when it's a shutout, it might be a better idea just to kill yourself. Those weenies at Princeton, however, will not take anything negative without making excuses. Our contact tried to brush off the loss at first. "Personally, I don't care. It's not a big deal," one of the sports information lackeys said. It wasn't long, though, before his true Princeton weenieness came through. Trying to offer a reason for the loss, he said, "Well, the weather wasn't very conducive to our offense." Good point, sir. Then again, what weather is conducive to sucking? Asked for his prophesy for the Tigers visit to Philly this weekend, the sports info guy said, "Well, Penn is tough, but if the weather is good, I think we'll win." Unfortunately for this schmuck, the weather forecast calls for a rain and heavy winds. Perhaps the Tigers should have considered the weather before they decided to abandon the tropical confines of Northern New Jersey for the entire season. Plan of the Week We at Roundup were not satisfied with Princeton's description of its loss to Columbia so we went right to Columbia coach Ray Tellier. What ensued was a clear explanation for the continued athletic excellence at Columbia. "Wow, the first shutout in 25 years, coach. You must have come in with quite a game plan." "If you hang onto the ball, you've got a great chance to win," Tellier said. "What? No secret weapon? No big discovery after hours studying game tapes?" "If you hang onto the ball, you've got a great chance to win," he said. Uh, coach, you already said that. "So you're saying that you didn't even bother to prepare for the game?" "It's hard to do in weather like that," Tellier said. Looks like Tellier is ready to join Billy Joe Hobert in the NFL.

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