<p>Total Ivy League Championships Won By School
Princeton -- 404
Harvard -- 347
Cornell -- 201
Penn -- 191
Yale -- 172
Dartmouth -- 130
Brown -- 117
Columbia -- 87</p>
<p>Princeton is one of the smaller Ivies in terms of student population, and (no offense) Yale and Harvard are considered to be slightly more prestigious (which should make HY (in general) slightly more attractive to recruits?). Why is it that P dominates Ivy athletics? Also, why is Columbia so bad (and I'd like to hear actual reasons / debate, not school spirit BS if you don't mind)?</p>
<p>Princeton and Harvard have been in certain sports longer than some of those other schools if I’m not mistaken. Also, I think Columbia’s location may be a factor.</p>
<p>This is a good question, especially because many athletic recruits at Ivy League schools are also recruited by several other Ivies. For instance, one of my roommates this past year was recruited by Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Brown. For him, the decision came down to the coaching staff on the team as well as the environment of the school. He really liked the coaches at Princeton and Columbia (and not so much at Harvard or Brown), but enjoyed his recruiting trip to Princeton more than his visit to Columbia, so he chose Princeton. </p>
<p>I think perhaps the biggest factor in attracting the best athletes in the Ivy League are good coaches who can build successful programs even without the very best athletic talent. A good coach can do wonders for an athletic program. For instance, basketball coach Pete Carril created an offense suited to Princeton’s strengths (designed to negate the athleticism of superior athletes by slowing down the pace of the game significantly and employing backdoor cuts and perimeter shooting), and won 13 Ivy League titles and an NCAA tournament game over then-defending national champion UCLA in his 30 or so years of tenure at Princeton. Lacrosse coach Bill Tierney won six national titles in his 20 years. When coaches build successful programs, they attract better athletes, which in turn create more success for the programs in a self-sustaining process.</p>
<p>Princeton has also demonstrated a strong commitment to its athletic programs in the form of excellent varsity sports facilities relative to Princeton’s size.</p>
<p>This might explain Columbia’s situation. If I were a recruit for, say, middle-distance track, I could look at Princeton and see that their track and cross country teams completed a double triple crown this year, while Columbia finished dead last in outdoor track. Which program would I rather run for? The one that wins. However, a perennial top team might not attract a certain excellent recruit in a team sport like basketball because that recruit might not see as much playing time while playing for a team like Princeton than he would while playing for a team like Columbia (see Noruwa Agho, for instance). It’s a complicated process, but good teams tend to stay good.</p>
<p>Princeton has several advantages for recruiting the best athletes.</p>
<p>1)Princeton has the largest endowment per student. This enables Princeton to offer generous financial aid to all students and to build good athletic facilities. While Princeton’s per capital endowment is only slightly larger than Yale or Harvard it is more than 6 times the per capital endowment of Penn, Columbia, Brown, and Cornell. Since Cornell has the largest student body and the smallest endowment in the Ivy League Princeton’s per capital endowment is almost 9 times the per capital endowment at Cornell.
2)Princeton is able to offer generous financial aid to all students. This article in the Cornell student paper clearly states that Cornell is losing top athletes to Princeton and other Ivy League universities because Cornell does not have the ability to offer the same generous financial aid that Princeton and several other universities can afford to offer. [Financial</a> Aid Packages Threaten Cornell Athletics | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/node/27969]Financial”>http://cornellsun.com/node/27969) . </p>
<p>By providing its own broader and more generous standard of “financial need,” Cornell coaches, Noel and Bilsky agree the “Big Three” are establishing an athletic superiority in violation the Ivy Statement of Principles that mandate competitive balance. And some Cornell coaches believe the competitive imbalance has already begun. Not only are the “Big Three” now able to attract athletes from other Ivies, they may be able to attract top scholarship athletes from schools like Stanford and Duke. Penn Director of Athletics Bilsky and Cornell coaches also fear that, with Harvard, Yale and Princeton able to offer such superior financial aid packages, it may draw students away from even looking at Cornell when looking at the Ivy League. “It is routine that financial aid packages are 20 to 25 thousand dollars [more than Cornell’s packages, per year] over four years,” Noel said. “Cornell University is in a position of currently not being able to compete financial aid-wise for top athletics recruits,” said Cornell football coach Jim Knowles ’87. From [Financial</a> Aid Threatens Ivy Competition | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/node/28002]Financial”>http://cornellsun.com/node/28002)
3)Princeton has invested in building very good athletic facilities. The new state of the art soccer field was used this year as the practice field for the US World Cup team. The Jadwin Gymnasium is an outstanding facility that compares favorably to the finest basketball courts in the country. The athletic fields are on campus next to the dorms and the science buildings.
4)Several of the other Ivy League universities are in urban areas. The athletic fields in some cases are smaller or more distant. Princeton benefits from open spaces that are good for jogging. My roommate ran cross country in high school near another Ivy university. When he ran he carried pepper spray with him for protection against dogs and muggers. Princeton is a very safe location for jogging.
5)Student support may be better. The Columbia football stadium is a bus ride or subway ride distance from the main campus. Columbia students are known for apathy in supporting football and some other athletic teams. It is more difficult for a coach to recruit athletes when the recruit sees an empty stadium.
6)I agree with the comments made by Fight TheTide. Success beads success. In the first part of the 20th century Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were dominate national football powers. Princeton has 28 football national championships compared to Notre Dame with 21. Through 2007 the Princeton football team is in the top ten in the nation for most football wins. During the first modern Olympic games in 1896, Robert Garrett, Class of 1897, won first place in both the discus and the shot put, second place in the long jump, and third in the high jump. In the 1890 Olympics he won bronze medals in the shot put and the standing triple jump. He won the gold medal in the discus even though he had never even touched a regulation discus. His Princeton classmates Francis Lane won third in the 100m, Herbert Jamison won second in the 400m, and Albert Tyler won second in the pole vault. Over 80 Princeton athletes have participated in Olympic games. Before USC, Duke, UT, or Michigan established good athletic programs Princeton was an athletic powerhouse. By hiring good coaches and building good athletic facilities Princeton has made an effort to remain competitive while maintaining high academic standards.
7)Many recruits fall in love with the beautiful Princeton campus when they arrive for an official visit.</p>
<p>A little off topic but would Columbia sucking at sports(main basketball and football), would it make it easier to be recruited? How does one become recruited?</p>
<p>Athletics: messy business. I already love professional hockey, but at least those guys are professionals. Athletics may be important to schools, but the whole system is just sickening to me, especially since athletes are in a sphere of their own compared to other folks. It creates too much false hope in younger people.</p>
Spiffy athletes aren’t concerned with the sort of prestige seen through the prescription glasses of the genetically inferior, common nerd. In the athlete’s eyes, the combination of academics, campus, facilities, and coaches makes Princeton the Ivy League’s most prestigious school under which our breed may thrive and promote the continued acquisition of desired physical specimens. Truth be told though, I think we are more afraid of Stanford than Harvard in that regard.</p>
<p>The FA package difference started fairly recently so it should not have a big impact on the historical data.
Also if Priceton can attract so many good athletes, Why can’t their football team win one game against any Ivies last year?</p>
<p>Last year, the football team was plagued by injuries. We lost a preseason all-FCS linebacker and captain and an all-Ivy D-lineman in the season opener, and the defense absolutely fell apart; any team with a decent ground game ran right over us. We were on track to beat Brown (13-0 late second quarter) until our starting QB broke his collarbone and two of our top 3 RBs went down, and the offense completely stalled for most of the rest of the year.</p>
<p>What monstor said. It has had a good rep of being good for athletics, so it contineus to draw athletes. And it combines being basically as prestigious as Harvard (it already is equal to Yale) with a not so nerdy feel. You hear Harvard or Yale and think “nerd” Princeton says “snobbish, perhaps.” People don’t want to be nerds. They want to be snobs that had a fancy degree and a good time in school.</p>
<p>Even though I’m not that good at athletics (walk-on, not recruited) I would still prefer Princeton over Harvard.</p>