Photo of the Day: All Dressed Up, But Nothing To Cheer For

When I took this photo of the cheerleaders for Columbia University early in the Lions’ first home football game a month ago, there was still a good deal for them to cheer for. That’s normally the way it is when you begin a season, anyway, and even more so after you’re coming off a prior one in which the team did not win a single game.

But, I strongly suspect, it’s been increasingly hard to rouse the hometown crowd when what is happening on the field seems at such wild variance with what you’re trying to do. And so it has been this year. The scores, including that first loss at Kraft Field, have been familiarly dismal, even redundant: 49-7, 42-7, 38-6, 61-28, 31-7.

This Saturday, Columbia hosts Dartmouth for the Homecoming Game. Relief doesn’t appear to be in sight then, since Big Green has won three straight, including two in the Ivy League. The losing streak, holding over from last year, stands at 16 and counting—and, as can be seen in this post from the “Roar Lions” blog after the Penn debacle, the calls for the firing of Coach Pete Mangurian continue to mount.