NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

ianne Murphy leaned over a conference table and wr
apped her fingers around a disposable cup of coffe
e. There was no time to sleep these days, she said
.
Murphy, the university’s athletic director, was in
the midst of a nationwide hunt for a new football
coach, a circumstance shared by a high number of
top-flight programs this fall. Earlier that week,
Ohio State made headlines by hiring Urban Meyer, t
he former coach at Florida, enticing him with a co
mpensation package that included a base salary of
$4 million per year, a country club membership, a
$12,000 automobile stipend and the use of a privat
e jet.
As Murphy, bleary-eyed yet cheerful, prepared for
another day of telephone interviews, the situation
in Columbus seemed a far cry from the situation a
t Columbia. The quirks of coaching Ivy League foot
ball — not to mention finding a coach in the first
place — are well known, but the idiosyncrasies fe
el multiplied at Columbia, a university in the hea
rt of a bustling city with a football program famo
us for losing 44 straight games in the 1980s. And,
of course, Murphy does not have an airplane to us
e as a bargaining chip.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Murphy said with a laugh.
“Yeah, that would be nice. But the right person f
or us is probably sitting in coach somewhere.”
Murphy arrived at Columbia in 2005 with the task o
f revitalizing a floundering athletics department,
and in many respects she has seen success. Sports
at Columbia have found some new respectability. T
his past season, the men’s cross-country team qual
ified for the N.C.A.A. nationals for the first tim
e and the men’s soccer team came within a goal of
its first league title since 1993.
Football, though, has continued to lag. This year,