Dean Cain '88 joins team to document Ivy League football

Athletes graduating without attending class. Hundreds of thousands of dollars bet on single games. Football players being virtually bought and sold.

These ideas aren't typically associated with the Ivy League today. A new documentary, however, is exploring how the "Ancient Eight" schools established these problems in college football and then formed a league that tamed them.

The film, currently being worked on by two former Ivy League football players, reveals the history of Ancient Eight football before and after the creation of the Ivy League itself. At the same time, it connects football with the American Dream, demonstrating the larger link between this sport and the cultural history of its homeland.

George GianFrancisco, a 1988 Columbia graduate, is the director and producer of his brainchild, a documentary titled "THE LEAGUE." Princeton alum Dean Cain '88 teamed up with GianFrancisco to serve as both narrator and executive producer of the film.

"There has always been an uncomfortable relationship between college athletics and the educational mission of the university," GianFrancisco said. "[Through the documentary] we're trying to show the appropriate way that people should be handling this."

Since its birth in the 19th century, football has held a prominent role in American culture.

"There are so many things about playing football that seem to me uniquely American," Cain said. "Anybody can succeed, anybody can play, but you've got to work hard to do it."

By their association with the game's infancy, Ivy League schools have all contributed to that part of American society. The Ancient Eight schools that later formed the Ivy League conference — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale — shaped many of the game's rules and strategies.

Princeton's team played in the first-ever collegiate game of the evolving sport, a 6-4 loss to its rival Rutgers on Nov. 6, 1869. Just three years later, the first meeting between future Ivy League teams pitted Yale against Columbia.

GianFrancisco noted many of the Tigers' early contributions to the game, including a number of other firsts — first team to have a cheer, first use of a facemask, first mascot, first team colors, etc.

In the documentary, GianFrancisco traces these and many more contributions of the Ancient Eight to the game of football.

Yet these teams' contributions to the better aspects of football were offset by their negative contributions.

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"[Ivy League teams] created all the problems in major college football," GianFrancisco said. "The only difference now is that in 1903 Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia — these universities were buying players."

For a modern-day illustration of the problems in major college football, look no further than the University of Colorado, which has recently been dealing with accusations of illegal recruiting practices.

"There's deemphasis of the educational mission in the face of major college football," GianFrancisco said.

In his documentary, GianFrancisco argues that Ivy League football today is a purer form of the sport. What distinguishes the Ivy League from other major college football conferences are, among other things, the academic standards — including a higher minimum SAT scores than NCAA regulations require — and a lack of athletic scholarships. These rules and regulations ensure that incoming athletes are suited for the academic challenge and not attracted solely to the school's sports.

"The problems persist today, but somewhere in the middle of the 20th century the Ivy League takes a step back and says, 'This is not the way to do it,' " GianFrancisco said.

In 1945, representatives from each Ancient Eight school met to establish these rules and regulations regarding football recruits. A 1954 agreement signed by the Ivy universities' presidents founded the Ivy League as an athletic conference, essentially extending the league's mission to other sports.

GianFrancisco sees this creation of the league as the turning point for its eight member institutions that refocused them on academics.

"The Ivy League is promoting the idealized amateur way where participation is really the important thing," GianFrancisco said.

In the film, GianFrancisco communicates the idea that the Ivy League is preserving the American dream by maintaining the college game's purity as an amateur sport. The league does everything to avoid corruption of its educational mission in the business that the sport has become today.

According to GianFrancisco, a large part of Ivy League athletics' contribution to American society has been the well-rounded graduates it produces. He draws parallels between Hobey Baker and Cain himself as early and modern examples of the ideal student-athlete.

Baker was a successful multi-sport athlete at Princeton in the 1910s before serving in World War I. His devotion to the amateur nature of football provided an early model of the balance between academics and athletics.

Cain is an actor best known for his starring role in the '90s television show "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Relatively few people know of his past success on the gridiron, however. A defensive back for the Tigers, in his senior season Cain had 12 interceptions, an NCAA record. His acting career took off only after a knee injury ended his NFL career.

"I think it's wonderful that students can get scholarships to play athletics at universities," Cain said. "But the fact that you can't do that in the Ivy League just makes it extra special. It's really in the vein of the true student-athlete."

As in the case of most intercollegiate athletes, his participation in sports was an integral part of Cain's college experience.

"I absolutely loved it," Cain said. "It was a wonderful experience, and participating in athletics there was a huge part of that."

Though he calls the academic challenge "the most difficult adjustment," his athletic career was the perfect complement to his formal education at the University.

"I actually got better grades during football season, when I had no time, because I had to bear down and work a little harder," Cain said.

GianFrancisco and Cain feel strongly about the balance between athletics, academics and larger society in the Ivy League. Neither considers the league perfect, however — they both believe that Ivy teams should be allowed to have playoffs.

"It's a reward to the players to be able to compete at the national level," GianFrancisco said.

The documentary is in its final stages of production. GianFrancisco already captured on camera every Ivy League football stadium last fall. Currently, with Cain's help, he is putting together interviews of notable Ivy League football alumni and others involved in the game. For example, he plans to talk with Chris Berman. Berman, a sports commentator while a student at Brown, is now a famous ESPN announcer. Other notable Ivy League football alumni to be included in the project are Senator Ted Kennedy, actor Tommy Lee Jones and anchorman Stone Phillips.

The documentary will be organized chronologically. According to the project's creative synopsis, its style will resemble Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary. The film uses narration of a prepared text to discuss the issues displayed by game footage and presented in interviews. It will be feature-length (between 89 and 120 minutes).

One possible premiere date is April's Tribeca Film Festival. GianFrancisco and Cain also plan to enter "THE LEAGUE" in the Independent Documentary Association competition in the spring.