The autumn of 2005 was a memorable one in Brown sports history, as the Bears captured two dramatic and feel-good Ivy League titles. Anyone who made the trip to New York to see the football team clinch the Ivy title with a dismantling of Columbia or who witnessed the men's soccer team's exhilarating 2-1 overtime defeat of the University of Rhode Island at Stevenson Field is not likely to forget those games, or those seasons, anytime soon.
The 2006 fall season fell well short of last year's successes. The football team stumbled to a 3-7 record. The volleyball team followed up a 9-5 league mark in 2005 by going 4-10 in the Ivies. The field hockey team started strongly but lost to a very good Princeton team and never really recovered.
Even the most successful fall squad, the men's soccer team, had an up-and-down campaign. Any season a team qualifies for the NCAA tournament is a successful one, and the three-minute, three-goal span in the Bears' first-round game against Adelphi University was easily the most exciting and impressive three minutes any fall team produced in 2006.
Still, Brown lost its two biggest home games of the season prior to the Adelphi thrashing. In front of an enthusiastic crowd on a perfect fall Saturday, the men's soccer team suffered an embarrassing collapse against Harvard. The Crimson ripped off six straight goals to wrest the league lead from Brown on its own field. Then, with its postseason hopes on the line in the season finale, Brown lost to sixth-place Yale, 1-0.
The team had a successful season, but considering that few Brown students were able to travel to see the team battle Duke University in the NCAA tournament or pick up big wins over Tulsa and Boston universities and Boston College, it's hard to say the team had a more exciting season than last year. In 2005 Brown was 6-1-2 at home, with the only loss being a 1-0 thriller with the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in the Brown Classic. For sheer success, the two seasons were identical, but for some reason it seems like 2005 was much more compelling.
The biggest disappointment of the year was the football team. The squad was extremely hard-pressed to duplicate its 2005 success this fall, simply because it lost so many players to graduation. Very few people expected the team to fall from its first outright championship to a tie for last place with Columbia and Dartmouth.
Even without playmakers like Nick Hartigan '06, Jarrett Schreck '06 and Jamie Gasparella '06, the football team still boasted a strong core of talent. After all, Zak DeOssie '07 - who might be the best Division I-AA linebacker in the country - and quarterback Joe DiGiacomo '07, who was entering his third year as the starter and had shown the ability to win games with his arm, were still on the roster.
Unfortunately, the football team was never able to get anything going all year. The Bears looked unimpressive in beating Georgetown University to open the season and then were abused by a more physical Harvard team in the second game of the year. Even in a huge victory at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown held a 10-0 lead in the second quarter and then let Penn run off 20 straight points before finally pulling out the win. In one stretch, the team scored on a clutch 82-yard touchdown drive but then gave up a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the next play.
That the football squad had to pull out the victory in overtime is testament to how nothing came easy this year. Brown would look great in flashes, but it never sustained any momentum. Fittingly, it was forced to watch Columbia's raucous and slightly ridiculous celebration in the Bears' end zone following a 22-21 loss to the Lions. This came just one year after the team thrashed Columbia 52-21 in New York.
It was unfortunate to see DeOssie and the rest of the class of 2007 lose their final collegiate game in such ignominious fashion. It was especially hard to see an emotional DeOssie afterward because it was such an unfitting ending to what might be the most impressive football career in University history.
To be honest, however, whenever anyone thinks of DeOssie or his fellow teammates, they are probably going to remember the miraculous run in 2005 rather than anything that occurred this fall.
With a fall sports scene that failed to sustain any compelling, week-to-week stories, one might think that next semester will be more of the same. As the fall semester comes to a close, the women's basketball and hockey teams are very much in rebuilding modes after losing a lot of talent to graduation.
The men's hockey team has been surprisingly competitive and has a potential star goaltender in Dan Rosen '10, but the jury is out on whether it can build on its early season success. This team could be very interesting by February, but we don't know yet.
And yet all hope is not lost. The men's basketball team is more than a quarter of the way through its season, and it has already produced more storylines than all other fall sports combined.
Not only is the brand-new head coach, Craig Robinson, a former Princeton player and businessman, his sister is also married to possible 2008 presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. It sounds to me like Robinson could be a candidate for a cabinet position if he plays his cards right. In the meantime, he has installed a new offense and taught the Bears how to play defense and look like they enjoy doing it.
If having a new head coach is not interesting enough, Brown won its first game by beating Providence College, had Michigan State University on the ropes in East Lansing, Mich., set a school record by making 47 free throws in a game in which it made only 14 field goals and saw its top player from last season quit.
All this and former Head Coach Glen Miller's return to Providence with his new team, the Quakers, is still two months away. If Brown is still in the hunt for the Ivy title when Miller comes to town - and after only eight games that seems to be a likely possibility - maybe this 2006-07 season will turn out all right after all.
Stephen Colelli '08 was a better sports editor than Sports Information Specialist Christopher Hatfield '06.
