Columbia Manages to Lose Twice During Game

Is it sad that an overly ambitious NCAA mascot's crash into the Columbia Television table, causing $6,500 in damages, outshines the team's efforts (a loss, though)? Or is it a no-brainer, because it involves backflip smack takling, a red-haired frog costume, Roar-ee, the Columbia Lions' mascot AND a university investigation? Gothamist picks the latter, and we thank the Columbia Spectator's blog for posting video of the blackflip gone bad as their print arm explains what happened:

According to Beth Katz, class of 2006 vice president, the incident began when she challenged the feisty amphibian to a back handspring competition. Katz said she did 10 back handsprings, but that when J.J. Jumper came off of his sixth repetition, he had veered too far off course and ran into the CTV crew.

“It’s his fault for thinking he could be as good as me. He didn’t didn’t do any back handsprings after that,” Katz said.

Oh, no, she did not just say that! It looks like CTV will have to pay for the damages, as they had contracted J.J. Jumper to perform (what kind of insurance is there for college mascots?), and there's an investigation because no one from school's Athletics Department was present (hmmm). Gothamist hopes CTV will make the Athletics Department pay - it's the least they could do for putting poor CTV staffers in the way of a frog projectile. The Blue and White points out that J.J. has his own problems - perhaps he felt he had to show off to get the attention of his unloving parent, the NCAA? At any rate, we rest easier knowing we can hire Roar-ee for our off-campus events - we just need to call (212) 854-8327.

Photograph from the Columbia Daily Spectator