Re: “50-year-old classic a hit in the new political climate,” Arts, Sept. 8, 2010
Whenever someone asks, “Who is John Galt?” it’s nice to respond, informatively and confoundingly, “A Scottish writer and businessman who lived in Upper Canada or what is present-day southern Ontario in the late 1820s and, among other things, founded the city of Guelph. His son was also a father of confederation.”
– William Denton
Re: “Lions fall victim to Ottawa powerhouse,” Sports, Sept. 15, 2010
I am a 57-year-old part-time York student and a former sports writer for Excalibur.
I have seen the campus go through many changes: from having to hitchhike to get home to watching 1,400 buses a day wheel in front of Vari Hall.
But there’s one thing that has not changed in 30 years: the York football team stinks and shows no sign of getting better.
In the early 1980s, we, the callow youths at Excal, ran an editorial calling for the football program’s cancellation.
We argued it was so embarrassing that it was dissuading other athletes from coming
to York.
It was just over four years after Canada’s only summer Olympics, and some of Canada’s best track stars were training here. We dominated in basketball and field hockey, and we were the national champs in gymnastics.
On Sept. 18, 2010 we lost to the Varsity Blues – a team that beat our record for most losses in a row – which means we’ve another win-less season.
In the last thirty years, the York Lions (formerly the Yeoman – don’t get me started on the name change) have a combined record of .153; they have not won in three years, and except for a surprising period in the mid-90s, have less than 20 wins in 15 years.
It might make sense to keep the program if Toronto public schools played football. However, in the former city of North York, there are only three schools left playing on the gridiron. The Lions have almost no local content.
The trouble with football is this: unlike the U.S., where the sport generates tons of collegiate revenue, in Canada it is a money pit. It likely costs almost as much to run the football program as it does to run all the other ball sports at York combined.
What good does it bring us? It means we get to see if we can eke out a win against a team with an equally terrible record.
It is time to put this dead horse down.
Sorry, we were right 30 years ago, and some things just never seem to change.
– Adam Berel Wetstein
Note: Excalibur was not able to confirm all of the above statistics for the York Lions football team
