Category: Fordham Ram Writing

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in March 2019.

“Parity” is a word that often gets tossed around in sports. Many people use it, but not everyone knows what it means or if they want it. Many people, though, know that sports don’t have a ton of it, and this is particularly true of college athletics.

College football has seen this first-hand over the past few seasons, with 128 Division I teams frantically following the dust trail left by Clemson and Alabama. In college basketball, for all of its March Madness upsets and mid-major Cinderella stories, there is a certain level of order that comprises the sport. To a certain extent, you know that the sport’s best teams–Duke, North Carolina, Villanova, Michigan State and Kentucky, among others–will have a chance to win it all at the end of the season. But all of those teams have peaks and valleys which include seasons even the best coaches in the country would like to have back.

That makes what happened last week all the more notable.

Take yourself back to March of 2004. No matter where you were or what you were doing, you can appreciate that the world was an extremely different place. Facebook was a month old. Twitter was over two years away. The iPhone was in the infancy of its development. The No. 1 song in America was “Yeah!” by Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris. The Marlins were the defending World Series champions. Oklahoma State won the Big 12’s college basketball regular-season title.

March 2004 was a very long time ago. It was also the last time the University of Kansas was not atop the Big 12 until last week.

Texas Tech and Kansas State will be sharing the Big 12 regular season title this season, with both teams finishing at 14-4 in conference play. Kansas was eliminated from regular season title contention with a loss last Tuesday to Oklahoma, which came at the end of a very uncharacteristic season for head coach Bill Self’s team. The Jayhawks dropped winnable games to Kansas State, Texas and West Virginia, and the death knell may have been a 29-point drubbing at the hands of Texas Tech on Feb. 23. So, for the first time in 15 years, there will be a team besides Kansas atop the Big 12 conference tournament bracket when it starts today.

The program’s success over the past 15 years–this one included–has been astounding, and more than anything, should serve as a testament to the man in charge of it.

Bill Self took over as Kansas’ head coach in 2003, immediately after Roy Williams led the Jayhawks to a loss in the national championship game and promptly ditched the program to take over at the University of North Carolina. Under the cloud of nearly impossible expectations, Self led Kansas to an Elite 8 finish in his first season, the last one before Kansas started its streak of 14 straight Big 12 regular season titles. It took Self just one year to reload his roster, and once he did, Kansas never looked back; the team has won 30 or more games in nine of the past 12 seasons, including each of the last three years, where Kansas has reached the Elite Eight twice and the Final Four once.

Ironically, the main criticism of Self has been his inability to win big games. Aside from the team’s national championship victory in 2008, Self hasn’t been able to reach the top of the sport. Of course, this opinion reveals just how hard it is to win a national championship and how much luck goes into winning just one title. This is something Kansas knows first-hand after winning its most recent title on Mario Chalmers’ miracle three-pointer to force overtime with, and ultimately defeat, the University of Memphis.

Unfortunately, this says more about us as critical fans than it says about Kansas or Self. While Kansas has not been a great tournament team in recent years, their overall success and sustained run of excellence should say more about the program than a few losses at the end of the season. In a sport where teams overhaul entire rosters from season to season, Kansas has stayed consistent, and the Jayhawks have not done so in a weak conference. In fact, the Big 12 consistently has been one of the best conferences in the country over the past 15 years or so, with several programs rising to the top and falling back to the bottom.

Case in point is one of the teams Kansas lost to this year: Texas Tech. The Red Raiders, in the span of Kansas’ Big 12 supremacy, have finished as high as second and as low as 11th in the conference, all while cycling through six coaches in those 14 years.

Many teams are capable of stringing together an excellent season or two, as teams like Texas Tech have the past couple of seasons. Few teams can string together 14 straight years of winning a conference. That’s what Kansas did, and those 14 titles should outweigh their big-game failures and late-season disappointments.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2019.

The 2016-17 Fordham squash team came one match short of winning the Chaffee Cup after a 6-3 loss to Richmond. Last year’s squad set out to avenge that loss, but suffered the same fate with a loss to New York University in the Chaffee Cup final.

This year’s team desperately wanted to go one step further than the previous two. On Sunday, it accomplished that feat.

Fordham won its first Chaffee Cup title in recent memory on Sunday after a 6-3 win over Northeastern University. The team won the Cup after winning its first two matches of the weekend against NYU and Hamilton College at Wesleyan College before taking Sunday’s match at Yale University.

“It felt amazing to win the Chaffee Cup, especially after narrowly losing in the final for the last two years,” senior Justin Esposito said. “It was a great way to finish my squash career at Fordham.”

The College Squash Association team championship started on Friday for Fordham, as they took on NYU at 1:15 p.m. The Rams got a second shot at the Violets, who ended their season in heartbreak at last year’s Chaffee Cup final. Through five individual matches on Friday, it looked like NYU was going to repeat last year’s performance.

Coach Sahel Anwar’s Rams fell behind 1-4, and the team’s only win was a victory by senior Will Pantle in which his opponent, Hamaad Jary, was forced to retire. There were four remaining individual matches, and Fordham needed to win all of them. That was when the team’s best players rose to the occasion.

Sophomore Justin Deckoff and freshman Jack Reed both got Fordham back in it with wins over Karan Kochnar and Max White, respectively. Senior Justin Esposito took care of business, as well, with a straight-set victory over Rishabh Periwal. With these three straight wins, it was up to senior Will Beatrez to take down Alex Murphy and pull off a miracle comeback to keep Fordham’s tournament hopes alive.

He did just that.

Beatrez and Murphy split the first two sets to create a best-of-three, winner-take-all scenario. Their third-set tangle required more than the customary 11 points to decide a winner, and Beatrez finally pulled ahead by two to win 15-13 and turn the tide of the match. The same happened in the fourth set, and Beatrez once again pulled out to win 12-10 and send NYU home. With their backs firmly against the wall, Fordham prevailed, just like it has for most of the season.

Fordham started the next day’s match against Hamilton College in a similar fashion. The Rams fell behind 3-2 after five matches, but as the prior evidence has shown, Fordham had the Continentals right where it wanted them.

Deckoff faced off against Jarrod Gerstein in the sixth of nine individual contests with Fordham in need of a victory. The match went the distance, with Deckoff gaining a slight advantage and taking home a win in a 7-11, 11-9, 6-11, 11-3, 11-9 thriller. Fordham never looked back, as Reed, Esposito and freshman Dylan Panichello all won their matches in straight sets to send Fordham back to the Chaffee Cup final for the third year in a row.

Sunday’s match against Northeastern bore an eerie resemblance to last year’s Chaffee Cup title match against NYU. In both matches, Fordham fell behind 3-2 after the first five individual tilts, and this year, the Rams did so after junior William Douglass and senior Will Pantle won the first two contests.

The question became simple: did the Rams have one more comeback in them with four matches left in their season?

Deckoff took care of business with a four-set victory over Isaiah Jones, which tied the match at three. Reed would face Connor Rouan next in what quickly became the biggest match of Fordham’s season. Reed and Rouan split the first four sets, including a 13-11 result that went Fordham’s way in the first set. Then, Reed did what he has done all season and stepped up in the biggest moment of the year with an 11-9 fifth-set victory to put the Rams up for good.

Esposito took care of Will Greaves-Tunnell in four sets in the next match, and Fordham clinched its first Chaffee Cup in recent memory. This year’s group avenged the sting from the past two years’ losses.

The moment is particularly sweet for Esposito, whose status for this season came into question after he suffered an undisclosed injury.

“It was definitely one of the best moments for me,” he said. “I am so lucky to have been able to start in every match for the team this season, compete at nationals, and help us win our division.”

When it was all said and done this past weekend, Fordham walked away with a prize it had wanted and nearly won the past two seasons. The Chaffee Cup is coming to the Bronx, and just like the teams Fordham played this weekend, the Rams will have it right where they want it.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2019.

The Fordham squash team’s weekend started much better than it finished.

The team defeated New York University before dropping two matches on Sunday to Connecticut College and Wesleyan University to finish the regular season at 17-7. The team struggled in its final tune-up before the College Squash Association team championship next weekend at Yale University.

The weekend started on a high note, as the Rams sent their seniors off in style in their last match of the year on the Lombardi Squash Courts.

Fordham toppled NYU 7-2 in a much more hard-fought match than the final tally would suggest.

Fordham fell behind early, as the Violets’ Gabe Bassil defeated Fordham junior William Douglass in three sets in the day’s first individual match. However, freshman Patrick Rodden stepped up and took home a thrilling five-set victory over Ashad Hajela. Rodden’s nail-biter changed the momentum for the Rams, and Sahel Anwar’s squad took the next six individual matches to coast to a 7-2 victory.

As Fordham headed away from home for Sunday’s matches, the team was unable to sustain the success it had achieved the day prior.

Sunday’s match with Connecticut College was only briefly competitive, as Douglass’ opening match went to five sets before he succumbed to Connecticut’s M.D. Jawad. No other Ram came that close to a victory, and the Camels walked to a 9-0 win. Out of Fordham’s seven losses, four of them came without a Rams player winning his individual match.

And while the second half of Sunday’s doubleheader went slightly better, Fordham did not get a better result. The Rams dropped their second match of the day by a score of 7-2 to Wesleyan University. The news was not all bad for Fordham, as senior Will Pantle and freshman Winthrop Reed both got wins in their individual matches over Yahya Ladiwala and Alex Dreyfus, respectively. But the Rams weren’t able to muster any more individual victories, and the team finished the regular season on a sour note.

“The two losses on Sunday against Connecticut College and Wesleyan were a tough way to end the regular season,” senior Justin Esposito said. “But I’m proud of how the team played in those matches despite one of our top players being out with an injury.”

Overall, the performance was a slightly disappointing one, if only because the Rams will be competing in the CSA Team Championship next weekend. It’s also very possible that the team was looking ahead to next weekend, which can be difficult to avoid as the season winds down.

“I think the most important thing for us going into Nationals this weekend is to make sure everyone is physically healthy and ready to compete at their highest level,” Esposito said. “Hopefully we can bring the same intensity and focus we brought to the NYU match Saturday, as it looks like we’ll be playing them again next weekend.”

That being said, Fordham ended its season slightly inauspiciously. Let’s see how the Rams can rebound at nationals, as their first match is on Friday at 1:15 p.m. against NYU, the team they beat on Saturday.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2019.

Americans don’t have a very high tolerance for bad football.

When Vince McMahon’s XFL kicked off on Feb. 3, 2001, many were eager to see what it would bring to the table. Many others were suffering from football withdrawal in the days after the Super Bowl and needed their weekly hit. The league’s opening game between the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws drew a 9.5 Nielsen rating, which was considered a smashing success and even scored higher than that year’s Pro Bowl.

However, the quality of play lagged far behind the viewership within minutes. The XFL quickly became the Fyre Festival of sports leagues, with everything from camera shots objectifying cheerleaders to Jesse Ventura sideline interviews and — worst of all for the league’s ratings — horrendous quality of play. The league was a gimmick, and it didn’t take very long for most of the country to realize this. Some wanted to see a legitimate competitor to the NFL, but instead, the league was a complete joke. The league will be making a comeback next year, but its original iteration was cancelled after one season.

18 years later, there are still no direct competitors to the NFL throne. However, there is a new league for those same people who are currently looking to mollify their football withdrawal syndrome.

The Alliance of American Football (AAF) kicked off this past weekend, with the league’s eight teams playing four games between Saturday and Sunday. At a minimum, the league brings intrigue with its head coaches, with notables such as Steve Spurrier, Mike Martz, Mike Singletary and Dennis Erickson. All of them coached in college, the NFL or both at various points in their careers. There are a handful of former NFL players in the league, and while they didn’t constitute the best of the best when they played in the league, they do grant the AAF some immediate legitimacy. Also playing in the league is former Fordham quarterback Kevin Anderson, who serves as a reserve quarterback for the Orlando Apollos.

Of course, I heard about all of this before the league kicked off. So, on Saturday, I decided to see what this new league was all about.

The game I watched featured the San Diego Fleet and the San Antonio Commanders. It aired on CBS, the league’s television rightsholder. The game’s quality was not great, and to be honest, it looked like an early-August NFL preseason game. San Antonio won 15-6, but the result was immaterial to some other aspects of the game.

One play that went viral early in the San Antonio v. San Diego slugfest was a hit on Fleet quarterback Mike Bercovici. On the play, Bercovici dropped back to throw and never saw San Antonio’s Shawn Washington coming on a blitz. Washington promptly drilled Bercovici with a hit that stripped him of the ball and his helmet. No penalty was called, and San Diego recovered the fumble.

Inevitably, comparisons to the recent state of the NFL rolled in. Many pointed out that Washington’s hit could be called a penalty in the NFL. For reference, the Chiefs earned a roughing the passer penalty in the AFC Championship Game for touching Tom Brady. These comparisons are slightly unfair; there were penalties called in this weekend’s games and many of them were similar to ones that would be called in the NFL. Moreover, when Bercovici took his tumble, he never went to the sidelines to get his head examined for a possible concussion, which isn’t a good practice. But the point is clear: people want to see a physical (A.K.A. violent) game. On that front, the AAF delivered.

There are perfectly legitimate questions about what the league will become going forward. Will the AAF continue to house former NFL players and coaches, acting as an alternative spring league to the NFL? Will it make a move toward high school graduates that don’t want to spend three years in college, where they won’t be paid and must risk potential injury while working for free? Will it be a developmental league for younger players and a feeder league for the NFL? Or will it be a combination of some, if not all, of these things?

All of this remains to be seen, and it may be years before we figure it out. Initially, this new venture reminds me of the United States Football League, which ran from 1982 to 1986. That league has several alumni in the NFL Hall of Fame — Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker and Reggie White, among others — and was a legitimate competitor to the NFL.

Unfortunately, the league tried to make a move from the spring to the fall to compete with football’s top league, and it hilariously went under after it won an antitrust lawsuit for all of $3 against the NFL. The attempt to compete directly with the NFL was spearheaded by the New Jersey Generals’ owner, who now works as the owner of the United States’ nuclear codes.

The AAF should avoid such a mistake, as it would be impossible to compete with the NFL and all eight teams are owned centrally by the league itself. However, there’s no shame in being the antidote to football fans’ cravings for the sport in the months after the Super Bowl. That’s the perfect goal for a league that just might pull it off.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2019.

There will be three new assistants on the sidelines when the Fordham football team takes the field in late August.

Head Coach Joe Conlin announced the new hires today, and the three coaches will combine to fill four roles.

Kevin Decker will be the team’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He held the same roles at Brown University last season. He replaces Mike Burchett, who served just one year in those same roles and moved on to become an offensive analyst on Dana Holgorsen’s staff at the University of Houston this season; Burchett worked the prior three seasons for Holgorsen at West Virginia. Interestingly enough, Decker’s brother, James, is a volunteer assistant for the Fordham men’s basketball team.

Decker comes to the Bronx after spending the last three years on the coaching staff at Brown. Last year, his offense ranked last in the Ivy League in yards per game and points per game, but freshman quarterback Michael McGovern finished the season second in the Ivy League in total offense. Decker is likely hoping to do the same thing with rising sophomore QB Tim DeMorat, who set a Fordham freshman record with 11 touchdown passes last season.

He will inherit an offense that struggled in several areas last season, but particularly with blocking, as the Rams finished dead last in the Patriot League with 50 sacks allowed. But the offense’s wide receiver group is also in a state of flux, as seniors Jonathan Lumley, Austin Longi, Corey Caddle, Isaiah Searight and Noah Nix are all done with their Fordham careers. This unit is getting a new coach, as well.

Damiere Shaw has been hired as the wide receivers coach after spending the last six seasons as a student assistant and quality control coach at Temple and Baylor, respectively, under Matt Rhule. While at Temple, he oversaw the development of wide receivers such as Robby Anderson, who now plays professionally for the New York Jets.

Shaw will be starting from scratch with a unit that is losing a lot of talent but has added receivers Dequece Carter, Garrett Cody and M.J. Wright in recruiting. New Providence, New Jersey’s Jackson Barletta was also added as a wide receiver and a defensive back and could see time at the position, as well. Shaw will replace Chris Batti, who was hired in January as the quarterbacks coach at Eastern Illinois University.

Finally, 2018 co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Darrell Perkins departed Rose Hill to become the defensive backs coach for Randy Edsall at the University of Connecticut. He will be replaced by Jameson Zecharias, who held the same position with Indiana University in Pennsylvania. Zecharias also previously coached linebackers and cornerbacks for three seasons at the University of Central Michigan.

“We’re excited that Kevin, Damiere and Jameson have decided to join the staff at Fordham,” Conlin told Fordham Athletics. “Each brings a unique skill set and experience, both as a player and a coach, which will greatly benefit the student-athletes at Fordham and help us achieve our goals as we prepare for spring practice and the 2019 season.”

The 2019 season starts on Aug. 31 against Central Connecticut State University, a team that beat Fordham 24-13 last September. The Rams are looking to improve from a tough 2-9 season that saw them finish second-to-last in the Patriot League.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in February 2019.

Throughout sports history, we have seen athletes who have played multiple sports at an exceptional level. Bo Jackson played professional football for the Oakland Raiders and professional baseball for the Kansas City Royals. Brian Jordan played three seasons for the Atlanta Falcons before hanging it up and playing for the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves, among others. More recently, former Notre Dame tight end Jeff Samardzija chose pitching over football, and twelve years later, he’s making $18 million a year to pitch for the San Francisco Giants.

We have seen athletes forced to choose which sport to play. We’ve seen athletes choose both. But we’ve never seen a case quite like Kyler Murray.

The Oklahoma quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner netted a nearly $5 million signing bonus in June because he was drafted by the Oakland Athletics with the ninth pick in the MLB Draft. Murray is a likely first-round draft pick if he decides to enter the NFL Draft; even though he stands at just 5’10”, he has an innate ability to play the position and make plays needed for his team to win. So at this point, you may be saying, “That’s great! He can play both!”

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. And no, he can’t choose both.

Murray entered the NFL Draft in January but can still play baseball professionally if he so chooses. However, he made an agreement with the A’s after his selection that he would report to spring training and begin his professional baseball career this month. He is still owed just over $3 million of that signing bonus on March 1, and if he were to play football, Murray would have to pay back that massive signing bonus.

On the surface, this seems like an easy call: Murray can keep his bonus, play baseball and avoid the physical and mental health issues that NFL players have faced both during and after their careers. However, this article wouldn’t exist if Murray’s decision were that easy.

Even though he’s receiving that signing bonus from Oakland, Murray will presumably be subject to brutal wages — possibly as low as $1,100 per month — if he starts his career in the minors. For old time’s sake, let’s say Murray is the last pick in the first round of April’s NFL Draft. Last year’s 32nd pick, Lamar Jackson, received a four-year deal worth $9.5 million, and just over $8 million of that money was guaranteed.

So Murray would get, and keep, far more cash upfront, and the NFL would actually pay him more handsomely over the course of the next four years if he cannot make it to the majors. And if a team takes him earlier in the first round, then he would get far more money than the $8 million over four years. Financially, it makes much more sense for him to go to the NFL.

That is baseball’s current problem. It isn’t that the league has done anything to fix unforgivable minor league wages: it’s that the league has actively gone out of its way to prevent its up-and-comers from getting the bare minimum of what they deserve. MLB is currently trying to prevent the state of Arizona from applying minimum wage laws to minor league players.

If this were to happen, players would almost certainly receive more money than they do right now, but it still isn’t good enough for a sport that raked in over $10 billion in revenue last season, which is a record for the league.

So Kyler Murray has a choice. If he plays football, he risks various health issues, in part due to his status as a 5’10” quarterback and a moving target for much larger defensive players. If he chooses baseball, he faces years of wage discrimination and substandard living conditions, without the guarantee that he would ever make it to the livable wages of Major League Baseball.

Kyler Murray has a very difficult decision ahead of him. No matter what he decides to do, he will get robbed.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2019.

Fordham Men’s Soccer has found Jim McElderry’s replacement.

53 days after the former coach left to take the same job at Rutgers University, Carlo Acquista has been named as his official replacement. Acquista comes to the Bronx with 16 years of experience as a college head coach with Adelphi University and St. Francis University in Brooklyn. He spent the past 11 months as a scout for the New York Red Bulls, who recently selected Fordham forward Janos Loebe and goalie Rashid Nuhu in the Major League Soccer (MLS) SuperDraft earlier this month.

“I am humbled and honored for this fantastic opportunity that has been presented to me here at Fordham University,” Acquista told Fordham Athletics. “My family and I could not be more thrilled to become part of the Rams family.”

Acquista won just 11 games in five seasons from 2002-2006 as the head coach at St. Francis. However, he found far more success at Adelphi, where he won over 62 percent of his games in 11 seasons. In his final two seasons at the helm, Acquista led the Panthers to three straight NCAA Division II soccer tournaments, highlighted by a 2016 season that saw Adelphi reached the quarterfinals and post a 19-win season.

“We are thrilled to bring on Carlo Acquista to lead the men’s soccer program,” Fordham Athletic Director Dave Roach told Fordham Athletics. “Carlo has extensive background in finding outstanding talent and bringing it to New York, whether it was for the Red Bulls, Adelphi, or St. Francis, and then develop that talent into winning programs.”

In addition to being a perennial winner at Adelphi, Acquista was also a winner as a player. He graduated from St. John’s University in 2000 and went to four NCAA Tournaments in as many years with the Red Storm. In his freshman year, the Red Storm won the national championship. He inherits a Fordham roster that, despite suffering some losses to graduation — Nuhu, Loebe and Matt Miller among them — still hopes to compete in the Atlantic 10. Last year, the Rams missed out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015, and Fordham was bounced in the first round of the A-10 Tournament by Rhode Island last season.

Getting Fordham back to the NCAA Tournament is the challenge that awaits Acquista. He appears to be ready for it.

“As a native New Yorker, I understand the history of Fordham University and the men’s soccer program,” Acquista told Fordham Athletics. “I will work diligently to recruit the talented student-athlete who will compete in the ultra-competitive Atlantic 10, as well as meeting and engaging our proud alumni, campus community, and fans.” Acquista also cited the importance of integrating academics and athletics within a Jesuit institution like Fordham.

Carlo Acquista is just the fifth head coach in the history of Fordham Men’s Soccer. He follows in the footsteps of one of the most successful Fordham coaches, in any sport, in recent memory.

He has big shoes to fill, but the Westbury, N.Y. native is back in his stomping grounds, hoping to lead the Rams back to the top of the Atlantic 10.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2019.

Senior Justin Esposito says the key to the Fordham Squash season is resilience.

“We had to deal with some unexpected changes to the lineup, especially during the first half of the season, but several players have definitely stepped up to the challenge and played their best squash.”

This weekend, the Rams showcased that resilience, and the team is rounding into form at exactly the right time.

After last weekend’s cancellation due to weather, the Rams were back in action with a taxing triple-header on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday. Sahel Anwar’s squad took four of five matches on the weekend and improved to 16-5 in the team’s second-to-last tournament prior to the College Squash Association National Championships.

Believe it or not, the weekend started inauspiciously for the Rams as they dropped their first match on Saturday with a final score of 8-1 to Bucknell University. The lone winner for the Rams was freshman Dylan Panichello, who took his match in five sets over Bucknell’s Maxwell Oliphant. Every other Ram lost his match in straight sets.

Following the match, the team made the long trip from the Bronx to Hamilton, New York for two matches with Colgate University and Hamilton College. That’s when things took a considerable turn for the better for the Rams.

Fordham dropped just four individual matches Saturday afternoon en route to two victories. First, the Rams vanquished Colgate 8-1 in a dominant performance. Not all of the individual matches were cakewalks, though; the best match was sophomore Tommy White’s victory in a five-set thriller over Colgate’s Dillon Howard. Fordham had a chance to sweep the Raiders, but Colgate’s Daniel Lucas pulled out the final individual matchup over Fordham freshman George Holiat.

By the end of Saturday, the Rams had won two of their three matches. When Sunday rolled around, Fordham’s fortune continued.

The Rams took two more matches against Siena College and Bard University; these matches were played in Annendale-on-Hudson, New York, which was a more manageable drive of slightly under 100 miles up the Taconic. Fordham was tied after the first four individual matches with Bard, but the last five Ram players to take the courts took matters into their own hands and won all of their individual matches in straight sets. The win against Hamilton College was impressive, but it was also crucial for another reason.

“The win against Hamilton College was a big confidence boost, as they are ranked above us and beating them will affect how our team is seeded at Nationals,” Esposito said. “I think the team is feeling very optimistic right now and energized for our last three weeks of training and matches before Nationals.

Despite these two matches being played at 10 a.m. and noon, respectively, Fordham seemed unaffected, and the team was even more dominant in the afternoon when they swept through Siena 7-0.

With the four wins, Fordham is now 16-5 with two matches left on the season. The leaders for them have been Esposito and sophomore Justin Deckoff, who are both 16-5 this season. Both men have won nine of their last ten matches, and so has Fordham.

Sahel Anwar’s squad has two matches left in the regular season. Fordham will take on NYU at home on Feb. 9 and finish the season on the road against Wesleyan the next day.

The College Squash Championship is coming. Fordham looks ready.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2019.

The Fordham golf team had a lot of talent to replace after last spring.

The team’s star-studded troika of seniors — James Mongey, Joseph Trim and Matt Schiller — all graduated in May, and they left big shoes to fill. In fact, the three men finished their Fordham careers with the first, second and third-lowest scoring averages in the history of Fordham’s golf program and no, that is not a misprint.

And without Mongey, Schiller and Trim, it was a rough first semester for the Rams in 2018-19.

Fordham never finished in the top half of a tournament last fall, and the Rams came in last in back-to-back tournaments in September and October. Senior Josh Madarang finished with an average round of 73.4, the best on the team. He has tried to step into the leadership role left by last year’s seniors, and will continue to do so in the spring.

“I have tried to encourage my teammates to play better no matter how good or bad they are playing,” Madarang says. “I think I have also done a good job of keeping things laid-back and fun at practices and tournaments.”

The other senior on the team, Thomas Hayes, is looking to rebound from an up-and-down fall season, one that saw him fire a low round of 70 at the MacDonald Cup and a high round of 86 at the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Championship four weeks later. The other two Rams to keep their average rounds under 80 were fellow sophomores Anthony Wells and Mithran Denbow; both also had best rounds of 73. Additionally, Wells, Denbow, Hayes and Madarang were the four golfers to compete in all of Fordham’s fall tournaments.

As we have seen, consistency was an issue for Fordham in the fall, and the team is trying to change that in the spring.

“I think the team realized we have to eliminate big numbers from our scorecards by missing the ball in better spots,” Madarang says. “Managing our misses will help consistency.”

Besides the aforementioned athletes, there are other interesting pieces at head coach Paul Dillon’s disposal this spring. Freshman and Bronx native Aidan Denning competed in 11 of Fordham’s 13 rounds and finished the season with an average score just under 81. After not competing last season, sophomore Dean Cerimido competed in six rounds but struggled and never shot below an 81. Also returning is freshman Billy Harrison, who competed at the Lehigh Invitational and shot an 84 and an 85.

In the fall, the Fordham golf team felt the losses of the three best statistical golfers in its history. These departures reverberated throughout the fall season, and the team never quite recovered from them.

Now, the Rams will try to match, if not improve, last year’s seventh-place finish in the A-10 Tournament. Just like it did in the fall, Paul Dillon’s team has a lot of work to do.

This article originally appeared in The Fordham Ram in January 2019.

We live in a world that often focuses on the future instead of the present.

When Britney Spears broke through as a pop star in the late ‘90s, some said she was the next Madonna. Now, a young pop star might be labeled the next Britney Spears or Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga; the list goes on and on. The point is that when we see something new and exciting, our initial tendency is to try to think of what that person or thing reminds us of. Politically speaking, the developing Russian collusion story has been often compared to Watergate. The point is that it’s far more interesting to find the “next” version of something than the first version of something new. The desired effect is that we’ve seen that thing before and now we’re seeing it again.

This leads us into the latest round of NFL coaching transactions.

Let’s start with a guy who isn’t going anywhere. Los Angeles Rams Head Coach Sean McVay, who turns 33 tomorrow, has quickly established himself as one of the best in the league. He has led the Rams to back-to-back NFC West titles in his first two seasons at the helm, and his offensive wizardry has done wonders for his quarterback, Jared Goff. Goff has turned into one of the better quarterbacks in the league after struggling in his rookie season under the leadership of the perennially-average Jeff Fisher; Goff has thrown for nearly 8.500 yards over the past two seasons, which is the fifth-most passing yards in the league during that time.

And it’s not just McVay’s work with his offense that has raised eyebrows. You can find at least one video on the internet that shows the Rams coach listing off characteristics — completely from memory, no less — of each starter on an opposing defense. He also appears to be very good at managing a locker room; the Rams added several big names in the offseason, and some have big personalities (Ndamukong Suh, Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, etc.). That doesn’t appear to have gotten in the way of L.A.’s success this year.

Therefore, it would make sense for teams to be looking for someone like that to man the sidelines. The problem is that said teams will stop at nothing to try to find that person.

The best human example of this just got hired by the Arizona Cardinals.

Former Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury ostensibly fits the profile of someone who can be that guy. He is 39 and has an innovative offensive mind to go along with youthful energy and a good personality. There’s just one problem: in his six seasons at Texas Tech, Kingsbury went 35-40. If a major awards show had an award for failing upward, Kingsbury would win it. However, the Cardinals’ quarterback, Josh Rosen, is coming off of a rough rookie season, and the franchise undoubtedly sees similarities between him and Goff as a rookie. So, instead of hiring the best candidate for the job, they’re trying to do the exact same thing the Rams did. In fact, they even admitted it, as the team’s website dedicated an entire paragraph of their announcement of Kingsbury’s hiring to his friendship with McVay, who the article referred to as an “offensive genius.”

This also happened on a smaller scale with a couple of the other openings. The Jets, in true Jets-ian fashion, eschewed several better candidates to hire Adam Gase, a respected offensive mind who just got fired by the Dolphins and was hated by many of his former Miami players. The Packers hired ex-McVay assistant Matt LaFleur, who is an entirely legitimate candidate and should succeed in Green Bay. Finally, the Cincinnati Bengals have not officially made a hire, but they appear to be zeroing in on 35-year-old quarterbacks coach Zac Taylor. Conveniently, Taylor is currently the QBs coach for the Los Angeles Rams.

Here’s the issue: all of these teams are trying to find the “next Sean McVay.” The unfortunate fact is that the next Sean McVay just doesn’t exist.

McVay grew up around NFL locker rooms. His grandfather John was a head coach for the Giants in the 1970s and later served as an executive for the San Francisco 49ers from 1980-1996; during that time, he oversaw five Super Bowl championships. McVay is an NFL head coaching unicorn; trying to find an equivalent to him is a futile and stupid exercise because there isn’t one.

And beyond that, if you’re going to find the next version of a head coach, why limit yourself to trying to find the next McVay? Someone like Chiefs coach Andy Reid has a prolific and legendary coaching tree that most recently has yielded the coach of the defending champions (Doug Pederson) and Matt Nagy, who won 12 games in his first season with the Chicago Bears. If you’re a team with an opening and you see everyone going for the next McVay, why not go for the next Reid? Reid’s offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy, deserved a head coaching gig. He didn’t get one, but he’s infinitely more deserving than someone like Kingsbury, who had to leave his new job as the offensive coordinator at USC to take the Cardinals job.

NFL teams have spent the past three weeks scouring the landscape for the next Sean McVay. In the process, they hired people who bring some of McVay’s positive traits without anything near his complete package.

But if the NFL’s most recent coaching carousel has shown us anything, it’s this: it’s not what you know; it’s who you know.