Catching up with Eric Blattman '80CC
6/23/2009 4:15:00 PM | Baseball, Football
[Note: This article was originally written for the event program for the 88th Annual Varsity C Celebration: Saluting our Student-Athletes in May. Eric Blattman ?80CC, a football and baseball alumnus, was honored with the Athletics Alumni Award at the event.]
You can't help but be impressed with all the improvements at the Baker Athletics Complex, from the newly-minted field hockey and softball fields, to the re-turfed soccer stadium, to Robert K. Kraft Field and Lawrence A. Wien Stadium.
But no sport's site has enjoyed more changes than baseball's ? the Field Turf that covers Robertson Field, the reconfigured spectator section and press box, the bullpens and outfield fences. The credit for these improvements lies largely with a solid core of devoted baseball alumni, one of whom, Eric Blattman, was this year's recipient of the Athletics Alumni Award at the 88th Annual Varsity C Celebration.
Blattman was a two-position starter at Columbia, a power-hitting outfielder and a power pitcher. An excellent clutch hitter, he was one of the team's top run producers during his career. He twice led the Lions in runs batted in, hitting .302 as a senior. In 1977, his freshman season, he helped the Lions to a tie for the Eastern League and Ivy League championships.
He also starred in football, originally as a quarterback, then as the starting tight end and punter. In 1978, his junior season, he not only was the All-Ivy League punter, but was honorable mention All-America for his punting as well.
Blattman played a major role, both for his kicking and his tight end play, in the landmark game of his gridiron career, Columbia's 3-3 tie with Yale at the Yale Bowl in 1978, and was selected as the Ivy League Player of the Week.
Following his 1980 graduation, he continued a strong involvement in Columbia Athletics that had actually begun as an undergraduate, when he served on the selection committee for a new football coach. He followed the example of two other highly-active alumni, his football/baseball teammate Mike Brown ?80CC and his former football coach, Bill Campbell ?62CC (both Athletics Alumni Award recipients), but no one had more of an influence on Blattman than Paul Fernandes.
“Paul was really important to me,” Eric said of the long-time Lion head coach, who came to Columbia in the summer of 1977. “I'm not sure if I would have stayed on the baseball team if he hadn't become the coach. He was fiery and competitive. He wanted to win. I really liked playing for Paul.”
Soon after graduation, even as he began a Wall Street career, Blattman joined baseball's Alumni Advisory Committee, where he has served for more than 25 years, and became an active participant in fundraising for projects such as the Lions' spring training trips to Florida.
His role expanded recently when M. Dianne Murphy became Columbia's athletics director and Brett Boretti succeeded Fernandes as head coach.
“Dianne Murphy,” he says, “never misses the opportunity to reach out with a personal touch.” Besides the baseball field improvements, he funded the purchase of championship rings to commemorate the Lions' 2008 Ivy League championship.
Blattman has joined with Boretti in a strong effort to increase the involvement of hundreds of baseball alumni. “We're getting more and more alumni involved,” he says. “In 10 years, in 20 years, we'll have a solid alumni base.”
As a high school student in Westchester County, Blattman never dreamed he might one day be a Columbia alumnus. He was considering mostly major athletic powers, although his mother and an uncle, both teachers, favored Ivy League schools. But when he suffered several major injuries his senior year, the athletic powers lost recruiting interest.
Luckily, he notes, the Ivy League schools never abandoned their pursuit. He chose Columbia due to people like Bill Campbell, the head football coach, as well as the opportunity to play two varsity sports, its proximity to his hometown so his parents could attend his games, and Columbia's excellent education.
That education helped Blattman's pursuit of a financial career. For many years, he ran a hedge fund, Maple Row Partners. Lately, he has become involved with an innovative startup dealing with energy efficiency and climate change. It has involved 350 college campuses in efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Recently, Eric and his partners met with a former Columbia baseball teammate, Ralph Izzo ?77SEAS, the head of New Jersey's giant utility, PSE&G.
In addition to Columbia Baseball, Blattman has remained active in sports as a Little League and youth league baseball and basketball coach. He and his wife, Wendy, live in Norwalk, Conn., with their daughter, Corey, 15, and son Jack, 13. Corey recently made the varsity soccer and lacrosse teams at Brien McMahon High School.
? Bill Steinman
