An Interview With Chairman Garrett

Columbia University officials yesterday admonished first-year football Coach Jim Garrett for his postgame comments following Saturday's 49-17 loss to Harvard, and warned him to tone down future remarks. The following are excerpts from Garrett's postgame press conference:

Q: What do you attribute the second half turnaround to?

A: Well, I think the long pass hurt us when he outrebounded us at the beginning of the second half and what really turned the game around was the atrocious punting of [Peter] Murphy, who will never kick for me again. Here's a veteran athlete at Columbia that would go in and kick that poorly when we needed it. And their special teams, their return guy really turned the game around. He gave them the momentum that they did not have. I'm proud of the first half. They kicked the crap out of Harvard...We were sitting in the catbird's seat. But adversity struck and we didn't handle it. The offense lost sync and coordination, which is what we obviously wanted to keep away from. The disaster we had at Brown last week, when we got smashed 35-0 [in a preseason scrimmage], the first half was like a golden rainbow. It was just super for us. And I just felt we should have built on that and really done a really great job. Believe me, we had the top echelon football team dead and buried at halftime...we rendered a great quarterback to a very, very ineffective person. We took away their offense. Our defense played magnificently. [Harvardrunning back Robert] Santiago wasn't even in the game. It's a throwback to the woes of 25 years. The first black cloud comes along, everybody jumps in a rabbit hole. There just has to be a composure aspect. I looked in the eyes on the sideline and I saw different people. I saw different body language on the sideline. I saw the quarterback become totally unravelled. We went on a 60-play script. Everything was scripted...I figured if we practiced these [60 plays] all week, we might have something on them.

Q: Did you get to all 60?

A: Yes, we ran all 60. That's why at the end [when] they wanted to do something, I said, 'get in there. I'm finishing the script.'

Q: (inaudible)

A: We had a golden opportunity. We really did. It would have been something that would have made this program come alive way before its time. It was just something that was right there in front of us. I told them, too, I said, you'll never in your life blow an opportunity as great as this. At 2:36, we were on top of the world. At 4:16, the same lockerroom was like a mortuary. But, as I told them, you did a bad thing in the first half. You now showed everybody how you could play. They absolutely showed how they could play. There's no more excuses...I told them come ready to play Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, cause I got to do what my job says. I got to go after them harder than I've ever gone after them before; and bring them out of it. It is an atmosphere disease. It really is. They're drug-addicted losers...Football is not volleyball on the beach at Jones Beach in the summertime. There's a lot more to it than that. But it was miracle. It was a miracle on 218th St. It was going to be there...Then in the second half, anything they tried; they put their 11th string in, and still they were making yardage at the end.

Q: On the bomb where Santiago goes down the right hash mark...

A: Yeah, [Joe] Policastro blitzed single coverage. No big route. You saw the route. [Santiago] went down the field like he was warming up before the game. [Policastro] blew it. Selfish assignment on his part...Nobody gave a crap. Can't do that now. Can't do that...The punting killed us. Absolutely killed us.

Q: What was the problem, specifically?

A: Lousy punts. you saw it. You and I could return the punt. The punt didn't go 15 yards in the air.

Q: Did you talk to him?

A: I just told the squad he'll never kick for me again. I think it's justifiable. Such a poor attitude. Hey, we're in this game to win. Don't tell me it's a college atmosphere. This is an atmosphere that creates people for the future. I want to see him when he graduates and goes to work downtown Wall St. and does three things that he did today and see how long he's going to work for that company.

Q: Are you going to keep him on the squad?

A: That's up to him...I'm really annoyed with him. I really mean that. He did not kick the way he should under pressure. I mean even the leg swing was not an authentic leg swing.

Q: How had he been kicking in practice?

A: Average, average. He's a very unmotivated guy. He just doesn't get with it. It's shame, too. Everybody in the world thinks he's got so much potential. Baseball play, he pitched against Brown, they hit four balls into the Harlem River. So you know he's been that way in everything there is. I'm really annoyed at him. He really could have won the game for us.

Q: You said during the seven straight touchdowns that you looked at the sidelines and sensed there were different people there. Did you try and do anything?

A: Oh, sure. I made about 32 Elmer Gantry speeches. But everybody had left the tent.

Q: When did the turnaround happen? At halftime?

A: At halftime? At halftime we had the greatest football team in the country. Are you kidding me? We had Harvard dead. Buried. The embalmer was getting the needle out. Are you kidding me? It was the long pass and the three bad punts. A team that has a long history of losing cannot cope with that.

Q: Coach, what's going to change so that you can keep up that kind of momentum that you had in the first half? What's the first thing you've got to change?

A: Accelerate the practice rhythm. Make every practice just like the game. Put more pressure on them.