Columbia
396-683-42
4 seasons in a row without a win 1984-1987 - Lost 44 loses out of 47 games without a win (3 ties)
1933 - Rose Bowl Champion 8-1 Record
1961 - Ivy League Champion


Prairie View A&M
402-459-34
1989-1998 - Lost 80 games in a row
1953 - Shared Black College football national Championship
1954 - Shared Black College football national Championship
1958 - Black College football national Champion
1963 - Black College football national Champion
1964 - Black College football national Champion

SWAC Champion
1931
1933
1951
1952
1953
1954
1958
1960
1963
1964
2009

Which history would you choose?

PV, only because I went there.

I remember seeing this on Youtube a few months back -- Prairie View has a VERY interesting football history. Let me find it.

It's 14:57-18:47 of this video:

Well, you couldn't have chosen two more disparate programs to choose from: Columbia, an elite Ivy sitting with one block of green space at 116th and Broadway, or Prairie View A&M, with 1440 acres and an endowment worth 1.2% that of Columbia.

Over the last century, Columbia has the better tradition, given its name recognition (most people don't even know where PV is) and memorable games. But for recent years, PV has developed a much more loyal student and alumni base. Columbia is less a college community and more a community of individuals all studying at the same place, and as such sports have little meaning.

The Marching Storm is a point of pride at PV, while the Columbia band dissolved in 2019 over infighting--they have no band at halftime this year. Panther Stadium and Wien Stadium seat about the same number, but one is on campus and the other is a five mile, 40 minute car ride north, a place that many Columbia students never see unless they are taking the northbound Amtrak out of town.

The comparison is prestige versus promise. And this would be a great intersectional game to set up. Seeing the Storm march up Broadway would be an event.

That is why I asked the question. Both teams have a section of terrible football history. They are two very different universities, with different purposes. The common thread is a period of terrible football. Is the limited success that Columbia had, with a shorter losing period better than the more longer term success of PV, but a much longer period of futility.

It’s hard to believe that in a league of just 8 that Columbia has been so inept in football. This is a school whose alumni have brought “Columbia Blue” as a school color to numerous institutions.

Columbia has posted seven winning seasons since 1947. Seven.

I prefer Columbia's stadium, so I say Columbia. Classic location.

I'm a SWAC fan so will side with Prairie View, just for the sheer adversity overcome.

Not only did PV lose 80 straight games, 19 of which were shutouts, did not win their first game of the 1990s until September of *1998*, they also, because of budget reasons did not field a team in 1990.

So you're talking a program that suffered a kind of internal "death penalty" year, then followed by 7+ seasons with no wins at all, and yet ... here they are, still standing.

I totally bow down to that.

(08-19-2021 08:42 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  I'm a SWAC fan so will side with Prairie View, just for the sheer adversity overcome.

Not only did PV lose 80 straight games, 19 of which were shutouts, did not win their first game of the 1990s until September of *1998*, they also, because of budget reasons did not field a team in 1990.

So you're talking a program that suffered a kind of internal "death penalty" year, then followed by 7+ seasons with no wins at all, and yet ... here they are, still standing.

I totally bow down to that.

Give me Prairie View on this basis, as well. They chose to dig themselves out of this hole, and even won a SWAC championship in 2009.

They have a new stadium they should be proud of, as well.

And, yes, give us a game between Columbia and Prairie View, with the Prairie View band marching at halftime.

Columbia.

I worked for an Engineer who went to Columbia. He was upset when they finally won a game. This is how nerds think. Columbia's futility is their pride. It works for them. Go (lose) Lions!

(08-20-2021 02:44 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Columbia.

I worked for an Engineer who went to Columbia. He was upset when they finally won a game. This is how nerds think. Columbia's futility is their pride. It works for them. Go (lose) Lions!

Some schools are so adverse to the label of being a sports school that they keep the athletics dept on a shoe string budget to ensure they aren’t successful. If they do somehow find a way to start winning, the academics slash the budget even more. There’s this attitude that the jocks have to be kept in their place.

(08-20-2021 09:12 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(08-20-2021 02:44 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Columbia.

I worked for an Engineer who went to Columbia. He was upset when they finally won a game. This is how nerds think. Columbia's futility is their pride. It works for them. Go (lose) Lions!

Some schools are so adverse to the label of being a sports school that they keep the athletics dept on a shoe string budget to ensure they aren’t successful. If they do somehow find a way to start winning, the academics slash the budget even more. There’s this attitude that the jocks have to be kept in their place.

Or as folks call it in SC, the Charleston Southern effect.

I'd take Prairie View A&M. Because of their band.

I've never heard their band before, but I'm sure it's awesome like the other HBCUs.

The pageantry around college football is just as important as the game itself. That's what makes it a lot more entertaining to watch the Black Knights vs the Irish than the Packers vs Patriots.

"You can't laugh off school spirit, college presidents not withstanding. And as sure as the Ivies, one-time kingpins of the game, shrivel and decline, something far more important than athletic scholarships will go out the window. I've never seen it to fail. The more abject a "name" school's football team, the more virulent becomes the cynicism and sophistry of its undergraduates."--Grantland Rice, "The Tumult And The Shouting", 1954