Great moments in Cornell athletics, in living color
Great moments in Cornell athletics, in living color
In 1965, Big Red basketball player Blaine Aston '67 made a seventeen-foot jump shot in the final three seconds against undefeated Princeton, led by Bill Bradley, giving Cornell a 70-69 victory. But few current students knew about Aston's moment of glory—until fall 2006, when it was featured in a series of plaques commemorating great Cornell athletes installed in Bartels Hall's Bennett Family Concourse. The concourse—an ongoing project to spruce up the field house's main hallway—was endowed by former basketball player and rower Jim Bennett III '65, who decided that for a school with Big Red spirit, Bartels was too drab. "Jim recognizes that athletics is one of the important threads in the fabric that is Cornell," says John Webster, director of development for athletics. "He allowed us to transform Bartels and have it better represent the excitement and energy of Cornell athletics."
The Bartels entryway now features eighteen color plaques highlighting memorable moments in Cornell sports over the last fifty years. (In addition to Aston's shot, they include the 1948 football game in which the Big Red defeated Dartmouth 27-26 after Bob Dean '49 kicked the extra point with 2:40 left to play.) The concourse also boasts a series of nine-foot-tall banners depicting star players from each varsity sport and two photo murals of athletes surrounded by words such as "dedication," "confidence," and "determination." Eighteen more plaques—to be selected by staff, former athletes, and friends—will eventually be added on the other side of the hallway. "I didn't want a musty old case with pictures," says Bennett, a senior executive with the communications consulting firm Dix & Eaton in Cleveland, Ohio. "I wanted something that was contemporary and would have an impact."
Four generations of Bennetts have attended Cornell, starting with Bennett's grandfather, James Bennett 1911. (Jim Bennett's father, basketball player James Bennett Jr. '41, LLB '48, is in the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame.) "If there's something that's been a part of our family's life, it is Cornell athletics," Bennett says. "We always used to sing the Alma Mater on Christmas Eve, so my kids grew up thinking it was a Christmas carol."
— Aeriel Emig '09
Sports Shorts
WRESTLING RISES If there was still any doubt that Cornell wrestling is on a par with the traditional powers of the sport, it was put to rest quickly this year. The Big Red finished second in two of the biggest national events and moved to the second spot in the national rankings as a result. Early in the season, the Big Red posted an impressive second-place finish at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, trailing only champion Nebraska. Mack Lewnes '11 led the way with a first-place finish at 165 pounds while Jordan Leen '09 was second at 157. Cornell then showed its dual-meet strength by taking second at the Cliff Keen National Duals in January. The Big Red led the University of Iowa midway through the championship match before the Hawkeyes won the final four matches to take its 17th event title. The third-seeded Cornell grapplers reached the final by beating second-seeded Iowa State 22-15 in the semifinals and sixth-seeded Ohio State 17-16 in the quarterfinals. At press time, Cornell had an 10-2 record in dual meets and was ranked number three nationally.
CRIMSON CRUSHERS Cornell and Harvard have a long history of rivalry in many sports, but until this year men's squash was not one of them. That changed in December, as Cornell beat Harvard 6-3 for the program's first win over the Crimson in 47 years. A pair of freshmen, Charlie Wagner '12 and David Hilton '12, got the match off to a good start with 3-0 wins at No. 6 and No. 8. Chris Vernick '10 then clinched the victory with a hard-fought 3-2 triumph in the No. 9 spot. Cornell's women's team also showed its strength with a 9-0 win over Dartmouth, its first conference victory since 2002.
HONOR ROLL Arno Niemand '56 will be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and receive the Museum Order of Merit during the organization's Honors Weekend in June. The award is presented to a person who has made significant contributions, other than as a coach or wrestler, to the sport of wrestling. Niemand, who wrestled at Cornell from 1952 to 1954, founded fitness equipment company Body Bar Systems in 1990. Body Bar sponsors several collegiate wrestling events every year, including a tournament at Cornell.
LAX TOURNEYS Cornell's lacrosse teams will have more postseason opportunities beginning in 2010 as the Ivy League will add four-team tournaments for men and women to determine the league's NCAA automatic qualifier. The league champion, however, will continue to be determined through the results of round-robin play during the regular season. The tournaments will be hosted by the regular-season champion and will be held during the final weekend of the season.
GIANT STEP Pete Gogolak '64, who revolutionized placekicking, has been named to the second class of the American Football Kicking Hall of Fame. The inaugural class of five inductees, covering the first 50 years of football, was inducted in 2008. A former soccer player born in Hungary, Gogolak was the first soccer-style kicker in both college and professional football. A member of the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame, Gogolak still holds the career scoring record for the New York Giants with 646 points.
TAKING OVER The new head coach of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers is former Cornell assistant Raheem Morris. The 32-year-old Morris served as the Big Red's defensive backfield coach in 1999 before returning to Hofstra University, his alma mater, for two seasons as an assistant. He joined Tampa Bay in 2002 and has been with the team ever since, except for one season as defensive coordinator at Kansas State. Another former Cornell assistant helped the Arizona Cardinals to their first Super Bowl appearance, where they lost a thriller to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Arizona's special teams coach, Kevin Spencer, was a graduate assistant in 1979-80 before spending six seasons at Ithaca College and then coaching at Wesleyan University before joining the NFL in 1991.
Big Game
February 7, 2009
After winning 19 Ivy League games in a row, the men's basketball team was defeated 61-41 by a determined Princeton squad that appears to be their main challenger for the Ivy title this year. That made the next night's game against Penn—in the unfriendly confines of Philadelphia's Palestra—an important test. The Big Red responded decisively, quickly running up a double-digit lead, forcing the Quakers into bad shots, and winning 88-73. Forward Ryan Wittman '10 led all scorers with 21 points, including three 3-pointers; guard Louis Dale '10—last year's Ivy League Player of the Year—had 16 points and 9 rebounds.