MOHANKA: Emotions run high even for soccer spectator

I hate when sports drive a dagger into my heart. I hate when soccer, the beautiful game, leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hate when life leaves people around me devastated.

This Sunday, I was at Columbia Soccer Stadium. My intramural team lost a playoff game. We’re usually pretty good (we won the Intramural Championships in 2010). While losing that game was a strange and annoying feeling—even a wee bit sad—it was really only a drop in the ocean for my weekend. Since I was already full of all that hate, it had little, if any, impact on my mood.

What did make me hate any and everything around me was my trip to Ithaca the previous day. I went upstate to watch the Lions football and men’s soccer teams take on Cornell.

(While football put on a fantastic first-half display, the second half was all the hosts… I’ll leave it at that.)
But men’s soccer. Oh my god. I still can’t quite believe it. And I don’t know if I will ever be able to.

I’ve only been moved to sporting tears twice in my life, and I hadn’t expected this weekend to be the third. I think sporting tears are a special kind of emotion, and are, for the most part, hugely irrational since you, as a fan or spectator, have no control over the outcome that has caused the grief/joy. Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel any different from regular lacrimation.

For those of you with no clue about what happened, the Lions took to the field against the Big Red with eyes on the grand prize: the Ivy League title. Brown and Dartmouth had already played out a goal-less tie after 110 minutes earlier that day—why on earth the games in the final round of fixtures didn’t occur at the same time is beyond me—so there were three potential scenarios:

1) Columbia beats Cornell. Columbia wins the league and gets the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
2) Cornell beats Columbia. Cornell, Dartmouth, and Brown share the title and Dartmouth gets the automatic bid.
3) Cornell and Columbia tie. Dartmouth and Brown share the title and Dartmouth gets the automatic bid.

While the Lions (and the Big Red) fought tooth and nail for 110 minutes, it’s a cruel, cruel world and justice doesn’t prevail… so the third result was what ended up occurring.

The word heartbreak took on a new meaning. I saw a scene and experienced emotions I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I saw two entire soccer squads distraught, and two sets of fans thinking of what could have been. My heart bleeds for the Columbia athletes who were in that dreadfully unfortunate position, missing out on the Ivy title by one goal. (However, I strongly disagree with my co-editor’s suggestion that the coaches of the two teams should have met prior to kickoff and agreed to make sure the game had a winner.)

My thoughts for the past 60 hours have mostly been limited to “what the [four-letter word that rhymes with duck].” I would imagine that you’d need to multiply my thoughts by a thousand, maybe a million, and then add some to get to the emotional or psychological state of mind the members of the team are experiencing.

I’ve watched this team closely for three years, and I know that they’re hurting from the weekend’s result. Yesterday’s NCAA Selection Show didn’t do them any favors as Brown, whom the Lions defeated 2-1, was the only Ivy to receive an at-large bid to the postseason tournament. There have been several highs and lows in the past few years for this team, but this achievement—which should certainly be the highest high, since it’s an incredibly narrow miss in a competitive league—feels almost like the lowest of the lows. The team showed tremendous courage and grit by bouncing back from a six-match spell earlier in the year that would have crushed many teams and put up a far more than commendable attempt for the Ivy title. I really think it’s a tragedy that the script didn’t have a fairy-tale ending for the Columbia men’s soccer team.

I’m not yet ready to say that life goes on—call me a nut but this will take time—but since the sun has now set on the season, I think I should force myself to start looking ahead at a program that is going in the right direction. I really believe the men’s soccer team can send a message to not only the other sports at Columbia but to the rest of the Ivy League.

For other sports at Columbia, the message is simple: Keep the faith because a team can go from being win-less in the league in 2006 and 2007 to within one goal of the Ivy title in 2011. Granted, not every Columbia sports team can very easily have a large contributing recruiting class like men’s soccer did with the class of 2012, but it’s clearly something that others can take inspiration from.
For the rest of the league: Watch out. I know that the eight graduating seniors will leave a gap that needs filling, but they leave behind a strong foundation in place for the team to blast off from.

Integrity, passion, determination, excellence, and respect are all words I see time and time again on Columbia’s athletic apparel. Normally I don’t think twice about the relevance and meaning of those words, and I dismiss them. This weekend was different. I saw a team really display all those qualities. I was proud to be there watching them. I was proud that they fought till the end. I was proud that they represent the school I call my own. I’m proud of the 2011 iteration of our men’s soccer team and while I will be thinking about this weekend for a while, I can’t wait to see what the team does next year.

Mrinal Mohanka is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics. He is a sports editor for Spectator.
sports@columbiaspectator.com