BRAD AS I WANNA BE: Saturdays With Norries Wilson

Over the last two seasons as the football beat writer, I’ve had the opportunity to cover some thrilling games—a 21-point comeback at Lehigh and a battle that pitched 5-0 squads from Princeton and Harvard against each other last season, and then two last-minute finishes this year.

No contest, however, excites me more afterwards than when Harvard faces Columbia.

On face, there should be nothing entertaining about this game. Columbia is, at best, usually a threat for fourth place in the Ivy League, and Harvard has spent most of its existence on a completely different plane from the Lions—the all-time series record between the two schools is 51-14-1 in favor of the Crimson.

Starting last year, however, Columbia brought excitement to campus in the form of head coach Norries Wilson. The physically imposing former offensive lineman at Minnesota has rapidly become my favorite coach to interview in the Ivy League, despite snapping on a group of reporters after a loss to Penn last season and questioning their ability to report on the game.

So what, exactly, has made Wilson so much fun to listen to?
1. He’s easily the most game-ready coach in the Ivy League.

A frequent press-box debate among the football writers is which Ivy coaches would succeed on the field on Saturdays if they were allowed to play. At well over six feet tall and still pushing 300 pounds, Wilson looks like he could start on any offensive line in the Ivy League, and probably would. He is rarely difficult to find on the sideline, as he towers over most of his own players.

Wilson always wins these debates, since it’s hard not to respect a man who looks like he could crush you with his bare hands. Brown coach, former linebacker Phil Estes, is a close second just for his intensity.

2. He’s the most blunt coach you’ll ever see.

Within the space of his 10-minute interview on Saturday, Wilson said that “the offensive line play left everything to be desired” and called out his captain and quarterback Craig Hormann for trying to win the game himself, with Hormann sitting no more than eight feet away.

There is no gray area with Wilson, for players or reporters; we learned that last season during his tirade at Penn, as well as when he looked incredulously at the local reporter who asked him to “assess the team’s position” in the Ivy race. After staring for a brief second, mouth agape, Wilson recovered to explain, simply, “well, we’re in last place.”

3. He’s entertaining, too.

The bluntness comes with a humorous edge, probably necessary considering he faces questions like that every week from his local reporters. I think it was also a qualification for the job, as Columbia fired the most hilariously quotable coach in the Ivies, Bob Shoop, after the 2005 season.

“They probably ran for 500 yards against us, I don’t know,” Wilson said at one point, poking fun at his team’s inability to stop the run—a shortcoming that has the Lions last in the Ivies in rush defense.

4. The man knows football.

It’s evident from anyone who talks to him that Wilson understands the game and how it should be played. He took a Columbia team with arguably the least talent in the Ivies last season and delivered the school’s first season at .500 or better since 1996, winning five games and picking up a pair of Ivy wins in the last two games of the season.

The Ivy League doesn’t give out a Coach of the Year award each season, as most leagues do, but there’s no question he would have won it last season for the turnaround job he did with an undermanned squad.

It’s also clear that he’s recruiting far better than his predecessor. Sophomore wideout Austin Knowlin, last season’s Ivy Rookie of the Year, is one of the top receivers in the league, and freshman linebacker Alex Gross, who leads Columbia in tackles, is on pace to win the award this season.

In the end, though, I don’t care what Columbia’s record is. In fact, it’s nice to have a team that most schools can reasonably expect to beat, since it gives a sense of order to a chaotic, parity-driven league. I just want Wilson to keep talking, and telling it like it is, as he’s been doing for the last two years.

Don’t clam up, coach—you’re the most entertaining and direct figure in a league of relatively diplomatic, boring quotes.

—Staff writer Brad Hinshelwood can be reached at bhinshel@fas.harvard.edu.